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Biblical  Introduction  Series 

PAUL   AND    HIS 
EPISTLES 


BY 

D.  A.  flAYES 

Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation  in  the  Graduate  School  of  Theology, 
Garrett  Biblical  Institute 


>qq7,-~0 


3£ 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 

NEW   YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1915.  by 
D.  A.  HAYES 


TO 

ARTHUR  H.  BRIGGS 

PRINCE  OF  PREACHERS 

BEST  OF  FRIENDS 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Foreword 9 

I.     The  Apostle 17 

II.     The  Epistles 67 

III.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians      .    .    .  137 

IV.  The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians     .    .    .  165 
V.    The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians      ....  187 

VI.    The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians     ....  227 

VII.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 269 

VIII.     The  Epistle  to  the  Romans 299 

IX.    The  Epistle  to  Philemon 329 

X.    The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 349 

XI.     The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 379 

XII.     The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians 407 

XIII.  The  Pastoral  Epistles 447 

XIV.  A  Closing  Word 483 

Bibliography       489 

Indexes 501 


FOREWORD 

We  have  called  this  book  Paul  and  His  Epistles,  but  it 
might  be  Paul  in  His  Epistles  just  as  well,  for  the  book 
aims  to  be  not  only  an  Introduction  to  the  Pauline  Epistles 
but  also  a  Study  of  the  Personality  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
as  revealed  in  them.  They  are  fragments  of  his  life.  They 
are  all  autobiographical  in  character.  They  ought  not  to  be 
read  as  treatises  in  theology,  for  none  of  them  was  intended 
to  be  merely  theological.  They  ought  to  be  recognized  as  the 
products  of  personal  experience.  They  ought  not  to  be  pre- 
sented dry  as  dust  and  dead  as  a  doornail.  They  are  full 
of  vitality.  They  were  written  to  meet  the  real  needs  of 
real  people,  and  they  were  written  by  a  man  who  wore  his 
heart  on  his  sleeve  and  who  never  dictated  a  letter  without 
putting  himself  wholly  and  unreservedly  into  it.  We  shall 
endeavor  to  make  this  apostle  and  the  peoples  to  whom 
he  ministered  in  these  epistles  live  again  in  these  pages, 
being  assured  that  if  we  succeed  in  any  measure,  we  only 
shall  bring  to  light  the  life  and  immortality  which  has  be- 
longed to  them  by  right  from  the  beginning. 

We  have  read  many  works  on  Introduction  whose  prin- 
cipal business  seemed  to  be  that  of  dissection.  They  began 
with  the  treatment  of  the  subject  as  though  it  were  a 
corpse  stretched  at  full  length  upon  the  laboratory  table, 
and  as  they  proceeded  they  gave  the  impression  that  the 
whole  thing  was  becoming  seven  times  as  dead  as  before. 
They  may  have  given  a  deal  of  information  concerning  the 
material  composition  of  the  works  they  discussed ;  they  may 
have  been  full  of  the  mint,  anise,  and  cummin  of  the  minute 
investigation  of  minor  details,  but  there  were  weightier 
matters  of  which  they  seemed  to  have  no  appreciation  and 

9 


io  FOREWORD 

which,  therefore,  utterly  escaped  their  observation  and 
study.  They  were  long  on  the  letter,  but  very  short  on  the 
spirit  in  their  criticism.  We  hope  within  due  limits  to 
reverse  this  procedure.  We  will  be  looking  always  for  life 
rather  than  death,  for  genuineness  rather  than  falsity,  for 
the  compelling  truth  rather  than  ingenious  but  tenuous 
theory.  By  the  use  of  the  historical  imagination  we  shall 
endeavor  to  reconstruct  the  living  past,  but  we  shall  follow 
only  where  accurate  and  reliable  scholarship  seems  to  point 
the  way. 

No  effort  at  the  popular  presentation  of  these  themes  will 
be  allowed  to  excuse  any  carelessness  in  the  presentation  of 
facts.  We  shall  attempt  to  be  trustworthy  at  every  point. 
Where  the  great  authorities  differ  we  shall  weigh  their  argu- 
ments and  come  to  our  own  conclusions.  As  a  matter  of 
course  the  result  will  not  be  pleasing  to  all,  but  we  shall  have 
a  consistent  picture  of  the  great  missionary  apostle  and  some 
clear  conception  of  the  products  of  his  pen.  We  never  have 
been  able  to  see  why  work  of  this  sort  should  be  deadly  dull. 
It  ought  to  be  interesting  as  well  as  instructive.  If  it  catches 
any  of  the  inspiration  in  its  originals,  it  will  be  radio-active, 
energizing  because  so  energetic,  life-giving  because  so  throb- 
bing with  life.  Both  Paul  and  his  epistles  are  dynamos  of 
spiritual  vitality.  If  we  can  make  that  apparent  while  pre- 
senting the  authentic  facts  concerning  them,  we  shall  feel 
that  the  more  important  part  of  our  task  has  been  accom- 
plished. There  are  dead  issues  in  these  epistles,  to  be  sure, 
but  every  epistle  has  in  it  words  of  eternal  life.  They  have 
given  life  to  multitudes  in  the  past.  Sometimes  the  most 
unlikely  passages  in  them  have  proven  themselves  capable  of 
effecting  extraordinary  transformations  of  character,  as  in 
the  case  of  Augustine. 

Augustine  was  a  genius  without  a  rival  in  his  generation, 
but  he  was  a  libertine  as  well.  When  he  came  under  con- 
viction that  he  ought  to  be  a  Christian  he  prayed  in  his 
wretchedness,  "Grant  me  chastity  and  continency — but  not 


FOREWORD  1 1 

yet."  He  realized  his  own  insincerity  and  his  cowardice,  for 
he  was  afraid  that  God  would  answer  that  prayer  too  soon 
and  he  might  be  deprived  of  the  enjoyment  of  his  concu- 
piscence. Lust  and  custom  and  necessity  had  bound  him  in 
chains  too  heavy  for  his  vacillating  will  to  break,  and  he 
writhed  under  an  agony  of  humiliation  in  the  recognition  of 
his  hopeless  slavery.  One  day  in  utter  shame  and  misery 
he  went  with  his  friend  Alypius  into  the  garden  behind  their 
lodging  in  Milan.  There  a  mighty  storm  swept  over 
Augustine's  soul,  and  it  was  accompanied  with  as  mighty  a 
shower  of  tears.  He  stole  away  from  his  friend  into  the 
farther  recesses  of  the  garden,  where  his  emotion  might  be 
unseen  by  any  but  his  God.  Then  the  Lord  spoke  to  him 
through  an  audible  voice,  as  of  a  boy  or  girl  chanting  and 
oft  repeating  the  words,  "Take  and  read;  take  and  read; 
take  and  read." 

Augustine  interpreted  the  message  as  a  direct  command  of 
God  for  him  to  take  up  and  read  "the  volume  of  the 
apostles"  which  he  had  left  lying  in  the  grass  by  his  friend's 
side,  and  he  went  back  to  Alypius  and  picked  up  the  book 
and  opened  it  at  random,  and  his  eyes  fell  first  on  the  verses 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  which  read,  "Not  in  riot- 
ing and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wantonness, 
no't  in  strife  and  envying;  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfill  the 
lusts  thereof."  1  He  read  no  more,  for  as  by  a  sudden  flash 
of  lightning  the  darkness  of  his  doubt  had  disappeared  and 
his  weakness  had  been  transformed  into  strength.  The 
peace  and  joy  of  God's  salvation  filled  his  heart  and  a  power 
divine  gave  him  victory  henceforth  over  every  evil  thing. 
He  was  converted !  In  the  reading  of  that  single  sentence 
from  one  of  the  epistles  of  Paul  he  found  himself  suddenly, 
miraculously  transformed  from  a  sensualist  into  a  saint.2 

1  Rom.  13.  13,  14. 

2  Augustine's  account  of  his  conversion  is  found  in  the  Confessions, 
book  viii,  chaps.  8-J2.  ".  .       ,  v 


12  FOREWORD 

There  was  such  marvelous  virtue  in  the  words  of  the  apostle 
centuries  after  his  death.  There  are  such  unrealized  possi- 
bilities in  them  still. 

Augustine  has  been  the  most  influential  theologian  in  the 
Christian  Church  since  the  apostolic  times.  The  greatest 
reformer  in  the  church  was  Martin  Luther,  who  was  an 
Augustinian  monk  at  the  time  of  his  conversion.  Like 
his  master  Augustine,  he  was  brought  to  the  crisis  in  his 
spiritual  life  by  a  word  from  the  apostle  Paul.  He  was 
sent  to  the  city  of  Rome  on  some  business  of  his  Order. 
There  as  a  devout  Roman  Catholic  he  slowly  and  painfully 
was  climbing  up  the  Scala  Santa  on  his  knees  in  the  fashion 
followed  by  the  pilgrims  of  that  day,  for  that  old  mediaeval 
staircase  was  said  to  be  the  veritable  flight  of  stone  steps 
leading  into  Pilate's  house  in  Jerusalem  and  therefore  to 
have  been  pressed  by  the  Saviour's  feet.  The  staircase  itself 
was  a  hoax,  and  the  performance  upon  it  was  a  hollow 
mockery  of  true  devotion.  Half-way  up  that  staircase  the 
sentence  which  Paul  makes  a  text  for  his  discussion  in  both 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
flashed  into  the  mind  of  Martin  Luther — "The  just  shall 
live  by  faith,"  3  and  not  by  mummeries  like  these.  That  was 
the  message,  and  that  was  sufficient.4 

Martin  Luther  rose  to  his  feet  and  walked  down  that  stair- 
case and  away  from  that  scene  of  superstitious  and  foolish 
performance  and  penance;  and  if  there  is  any  one  moment 
in  the  life  of  Martin  Luther  in  which  the  great  Reformation 
may  be  said  to  have  come  to  its  birth,  it  was  that  moment 
of  protest  and  revolt  when  Paul's  quotation  from  the  ancient 
prophet  showed  Luther  in  instant  and  convincing  illumina- 
tion the  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  over  any  performance 
of  ritual  and  the  right  of  the  individual  conscience  over 
against  any  prescription  of  ecclesiastical  authority.  When 
Luther  rose  to  his  feet  that  act  was  symbolical  of  a  new  era 

■''  Gal.  3.  11;  Rom.  1.  17. 

4  Lindsay,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany,  p.  207. 


FOREWORD  13 

in  the  history  of  the  church.  It  marked  the  end  of  the 
cringing  submission  demanded  by  Roman  Catholicism  and 
the  beginning  of  a  more  manly  independence  for  the  Protes- 
tant world. 

Since  the  Reformation  there  is  only  one  man  who  may  be 
compared  with  Luther  as  the  leader  of  a  great  onward 
movement  in  the  Christian  world.  John  Wesley  is  the  great 
evangelist  of  the  Protestant  Church.  He  was  a  preacher's 
son,  and  he  was  a  preacher  by  profession.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  of  England,  and  he  was  faithful  to  all 
of  its  ordinances  and  ceremonies.  He  was  a  member  of  a 
Holy  Club  at  Oxford  University,  and  he  practiced  all  the 
rules  for  holy  living  which  he  could  find  in  any  of  the 
devotional  books.  He  went  to  communion  once  a  week. 
He  fasted  and  prayed  and  sacrificed  his  time  and  his  strength 
and  his  means  for  the  good  of  all  men.  He  was  ridiculed 
on  all  hands  and  called  a  crack-brained  enthusiast.  Yet  all 
his  ritualism  and  asceticism  and  devotion  to  good  works 
brought  him  no  peace.  He  felt  that  he  himself  was  not  con- 
verted. He  went  as  a  foreign  missionary  to  the  Indians  in 
Georgia,  but  in  the  new  continent  he  failed  to  find  a  new 
heart.    He  came  back  to  England  with  the  old  unrest. 

Then  one  Wednesday  night  he  went  to  a  prayer  meeting 
service  in  Aldersgate  Street  in  London,  and  some  one  read 
Martin  Luther's  preface  to  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 
In  that  preface  Luther  declares  that  the  man  who  receives 
the  Holy  Spirit  through  faith  "is  renewed  and  made  spirit- 
ual," and  thereafter  he  finds  it  easy  to  fulfill  the  law  because 
he  is  constrained  thereto  "by  the  vital  energy  in  himself." 
That  was  what  Luther  had  found  in  the  epistles  of  Paul, 
a  vital  energy  which  had  made  him  able  to  renew  the  spirit- 
ual forces  of  the  nation.  That  was  what  Wesley  wanted 
— the  vital  energy  which  had  made  Paul  a  power  for  all 
time  to  come  and  had  transformed  the  life  of  Augustine 
and  had  made  Luther  the  great  reformer.  As  he  listened 
to  the  simple  truth  of  the  gospel  as  set  forth  by  Paul  and 


i4  FOREWORD 

interpreted  by  Luther,  Wesley  too  "experienced  an  amazing 
change."  He  wrote  of  it  afterward:  "I  felt  my  heart 
strangely  warmed.  I  felt  I  did  trust  in  Christ,  Christ  alone, 
for  salvation ;  and  an  assurance  was  given  me,  that  he  had 
taken  away  my '  sins,  even  mine,  and  saved  me  from  the 
law  of  sin  and  death."  Wesley  testified  openly  to  all  who 
were  there  what  he  then  first  felt  in  his  heart,  and  from 
that  meeting  with  his  new  assurance  he  went  forth  to  a 
career  of  unequaled  evangelism.5 

What  names  can  equal  these  three  in  their  particular  fields 
or  in  the  whole  history  of  the  church — Augustine  the  great 
theologian,  Luther  the  great  reformer,  and  Wesley  the  great 
evangelist?  We  have  seen  how  all  three  of  these  men 
received  the  impulse  to  their  life  activity,  as  well  as  the  con- 
tinuous inspiration  of  it,  from  the  apostle  Paul.  Greater 
than  any  of  them,  master  of  them  all,  Paul  the  theologian, 
reformer,  evangelist,  and  missionary  is  a  vital  force  in  the 
church  to-day.  He  has  imparted  something  of  his  vitality 
to  all  of  his  epistles.  What  Godet  said  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  might  be  applied  to  the  epistles  as  a  whole : 
"The  Reformation  was  undoubtedly  the  work  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  .  .  .  and  the  probability  is  that  every  great 
spiritual  revival  in  the  church  will  be  connected  as  effect 
and  cause  with  a  deeper  understanding  of"  these  books.6 

It  is  with  some  feeling  of  the  unquenchable  and  inex- 
haustible vitality  in  this  man  and  in  his  epistles  that  we  turn 
to  their  study.  It  is  in  the  faith  that  multitudes  in  the  days 
to  come,  as  in  the  days  of  the  past,  will  have  their  hearts 
strangely  warmed  and  their  wills  strangely  strengthened 
and  their  lives  strangely  transformed  by  contact  with  these 
treasuries  of  immortal  energy  that  we  shall  endeavor  to  pre- 
sent them  not  as  dead  and  done  with  but  as  living  forces 
with  their  message  for  to-day.  If  in  any  measure  the  spirit 
of  the  man  and  of  his  message  may  be  found  in  these  pages, 

5  Tyerman,  Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley,  vol.  i,  pp.  69-73,  l$°- 
'Godet,  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  p.  1. 


FOREWORD  15 

they  will  be  of  vital  value  to  those  who  read.  In  our  study 
of  the  epistles  we  shall  find  ourselves  studying  the  man 
again  and  again.  We  can  understand  them  only  as  we  come 
to  understand  him. 

There  are  no  concealments  about  the  apostle  Paul.  We 
can  congratulate  ourselves  that  his  life  is  like  an  open  book, 
written  by  his  own  hand  here  in  his  epistles.  Many  of  the 
biographical  data  registered  in  the  book  of  Acts  are  not 
found  in  the  Pauline  epistles,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  many  items  of  information  concerning  the  public  life 
and  career  of  the  apostle  Paul  scattered  throughout  these 
letters  which  were  not  recorded  by  Luke  in  his  biography ; 
and  we  never  could  have  known  the  inner  life  of  the  apostle 
if  it  were  not  for  the  innumerable  revelations  which  the 
epistles  afford.  In  them  we  sense  his  spirit  and  come  to 
know  him  as  he  really  is.  We  will  attempt,  first,  to  visual- 
ize the  man,  and,  second,  to  get  some  general  view  of  the 
epistles,  and  then,  third,  we  will  proceed  to  the  special  intro- 
duction to  each  of  them. 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  APOSTLE 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  APOSTLE 

We  shall  attempt  no  complete  biography  of  the  apostle 
Paul  in  this  connection ;  but  we  shall  try  to  get  some  clear 
conception  of  the  preparation  and  equipment  of  the  man 
who  wrote  the  epistles  we  are  to  study.  In  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  Paul  says  that  God  separated  him,  even  from 
his  mother's  womb,  and  called  him  through  his  grace,  that 
he  might  preach  the  gospel  among  the  Gentiles.1  We  under- 
stand this  statement  to  mean  that  every  circumstance  of  his 
birth  and  earliest  environment  and  education  and  all  his 
experience  up  to  the  time  of  his  conversion  seemed  to  Paul 
marvelously  and  miraculously  to  have  been  calculated  to 
prepare  him  for  the  greatest  efficiency  in  his  career  as  mis- 
sionary among  the  nations.  Looking  back  upon  his  life, 
Paul  was  ready  to  say  that  all  things  had  worked  together 
for  his  good  in  getting  him  ready,  all  unconsciously  though 
it  were,  for  the  work  God  had  for  him  to  do.  We  can  see 
some  very  clear  reasons  for  his  coming  to  such  a  conclusion. 

I.  Personal  Preparation 

i.  Jewish  descent.  Paul  was  born  in  a  Jewish  family 
and  was  reared  in  the  Jewish  faith.  Since  Jesus  was  a  Jew, 
and  the  Christian  faith  was  born  among  the  Jews  and  was 
propagated  wholly  from  them  in  the  beginning,  it  was 
essential  that  the  most  successful  missionary  in  the  early 
church  should  be  a  Jew.  His  race  affinities  enabled  Paul 
to  begin  his  ministry  in  each  city  in  the  synagogue,  in  an 
established  meetingplace  with  a  congregation  ready  assem- 
bled and  accustomed  to  religious  discussion.     He  preached 

'Gal.  i.  15. 

19 


20  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

by  preference  to  the  Jews,  and  turned  to  the  Gentiles  only 
when  the  Jews  had  refused  to  heed  his  message.  All  the 
first  Christian  missionaries  were  Jews  and  Paul  never  would 
have  been  able  to  maintain  himself  among  them  as  their 
equal  and  to  establish  himself  at  last  as  their  superior  if 
he  himself  had  not  been  a  Jew. 

Then,  too,  among  his  own  countrymen  he  had  certain 
claims  to  superiority.  He  suggests  some  of  these  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  where  he  says,  "If  any  other 
man  thinketh  to  have  confidence  in  the  flesh,  I  yet  more."  2 
Pie  then  proceeds  to  give  his  reasons  for  that  statement  in 
Phil.  3-  5,  6. 

(i)  He  is  of  the  stock  of  Israel.  He  does  not  say  of 
Abraham,  for  Abraham's  stock  included  the  Ishmaelites. 
He  does  not  say  of  Abraham  and  Isaac,  for  that  stock 
included  the  Edomites.  He  does  not  say  of  Jacob  the  sup- 
planter,  but  of  Israel  the  prince  with  God.  That  was  his 
ancestry.  He  was  in  the  line  of  those  who  wrestled  with 
God  and  won  the  victory. 

(2)  He  was  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  and  there  were 
several  reasons  why  that  would  mean  much  to  a  Jew.  (a) 
Benjamin  was  the  son  of  the  favored  wife,  and  Benjamin 
alone  among  the  patriarchs  had  been  born  in  the  chosen  land. 
(b)  The  first  king  of  Israel  had  been  taken  from  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin,  and  the  apostle  had  been  named  after  him. 
His  parents  had  called  him  Saul;  and  Paul  was  proud  of 
that  fact,  and  he  never  forgot  that  he  was  the  namesake  of 
a  king,  (c)  The  tribe  of  Benjamin  alone  had  been  faith- 
ful to  the  house  of  David  at  the  time  of  the  Great  Schism. 
The  ten  tribes  had  gone  off  under  the  leadership  of  Jero- 
boam. Judah  and  Benjamin  had  maintained  the  national 
integrity  and  faith,  (d)  In  the  Song  of  Deborah  and  in 
the  prophecy  of  Hosea  there  was  that  battle  cry,  "After 
thee,  O  Benjamin!"3  testifying  that  Benjamin  always  held 

2  Phil.  3.  4. 

3  Judges  5.  14;  Hosea  5.  8. 


THE  APOSTLE  21 

the  place  of  honor  in  the  militant  host  of  the  Israelites.  It 
was  a  matter  of  pride  to  belong  to  this  faithful  and  signally 
honored  tribe.  The  Saul  of  Old  Testament  history  towered 
head  and  shoulders  above  his  fellows,  and  he  had  been  a 
right  royal  soul.  This  second  Saul  was  to  tower  above  his 
fellows  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  accomplishments,  and 
he  would  be  a  king  among  the  New  Testament  leaders  of 
the  world  reformation.  The  Benjamites  had  fought  in 
the  first  rank  in  the  ancient  wars  of  Israel.  This  Benjamite 
always  would  be  found  in  the  front  rank  of  the  militant 
hosts  of  the  new  Israel  whose  mission  was  to  capture 
all  the  nations  for  its  Christ.  As  a  true  representative  of 
his  tribe  he  could  be  trusted  to  be  royal  and  loyal  at  any  cost 
and  all  the  time. 

(3)  Paul  was  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  and  he  was  a 
Pharisee.  He  belonged  to  that  sect  among  the  Hebrews 
which  was  notorious  for  its  scrupulous  observance  of  all  the 
religious  ritual,  for  its  patriotism  and  its  zeal,  for  its  piety 
and  devotion.  The  Pharisees  were  all  zealots,  but  among 
them  Saul  became  conspicuous  for  his  zeal.  They  were  all 
patriots,  but  Saul  was  the  most  ardent  partisan  among  his 
contemporaries.  He  came  to  be  the  chosen  instrument  of 
the  Sanhedrin  to  persecute  and  to  annihilate  the  Christian 
Church. 

(4)  No  one  could  find  any  fault  with  Saul's  reputation 
as  a  legalist.  He  met  all  the  requirements  of  Pharisaic  right- 
eousness. He  claimed  in  his  later  life  that  he  had  been 
blameless  as  judged  by  their  standards,  and  no  one  ever  dis- 
puted his  claim.  He  said  to  King  Agrippa,  "My  manner  of 
life  then  from  my  youth  up,  which  was  from  the  beginning 
among  mine  own  nation  and  at  Jerusalem,  know  all  the 
Jews;  having  knowledge  of  me  from  the  first,  if  they  be 
willing  to  testify,  that  after  the  straitest  sect  of  our  religion 
I  lived  a  Pharisee."  4    When  the  chief  captain  had  rescued 

*  Acts  26.  45. 


22  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Paul  from  the  mob  at  Jerusalem  he  asked  his  prisoner  who 
he  was,  and  Paul's  first  words  in  answer  were,  "I  am  a 
Jew."  5  Then  the  chief  captain  permitted  Paul  to  speak 
to  the  people,  and  Paul  began  his  defense  to  his  own  country- 
men with  the  same  words,  "I  am  a  Jew."  6  Paul  always 
considered  that  fact  a  chief  asset  in  his  missionary  career. 
If  he  had  been  asked  to  point  out  the  elements  which  made 
for  his  apostolic  equipment  and  success,  in  all  probability 
he  would  have  begun  with  the  statement  that  he  had  been 
born  in  a  Jewish  home  and  he  had  been  trained  in  the 
Jewish  faith. 

2.  Roman  Citizenship.  Paul's  father  was  a  Roman 
citizen,  and  Paul  was  born  into  all  the  political  privileges  of 
the  Roman  state.  What  an  advantage  that  was  to  him  in  all 
his  apostolic  career !  He  always  was  disposed  to  regard  the 
imperial  power  as  the  friend  of  the  Christian  faith,  protect- 
ing it  from  Jewish  persecution  and  saving  him  again  and 
again  from  danger  to  his  person  and  life.  He  made  the 
most  of  his  Roman  citizenship  whenever  necessity  demanded 
the  declaration  of  it.  He  usually  claimed  all  of  its  priv- 
ileges. He  made  the  praetors  at  Philippi  confess  that  they 
had  acted  illegally  in  scourging  and  imprisoning  men  who 
were  Romans  and  uncondemned.  He  made  them  apologize 
in  person  before  they  set  him  free.7  When  the  chief  captain 
there  at  Jerusalem  would  have  stretched  him  upon  the  rack, 
thinking  he  was  only  a  Jew  who  could  be  tortured  into 
confession  of  some  wrongdoing,  Paul  appealed  to  his  exemp- 
tion from  that  form  of  examination  as  a  Roman  citizen  and 
uncondemned.8  As  a  Roman  citizen  he  pleaded  his  own 
case  before  the  Roman  governors  Felix  and  Festus,  and  he 
finally  insisted  upon  his  right  as  a  Roman  to  appeal  his  case 
from  their  jurisdiction  to  the  court  of  the  emperor  himself.0 
In  all  probability  he  was  the  only  one  among  the  apostles 

6  Acts  2i.  39.  8  Acts  22.  25. 
"  Acts  22.  3.  ■  Acts  25.  11. 

7  Acts  16.  37. 


THE  APOSTLE  23 

who  could  have  done  such  a  thing.  He  was  a  Jew,  but  he 
also  was  a  Roman ;  and  that  was  a  great  advantage  and  dis- 
tinction. 

3.  Greek  Environment.  Paul  was  born  and  reared  in 
Tarsus,  a  Greek  city  of  Asia  Minor.  A  Jew  by  heredity  and 
a  Roman  by  citizenship,  he  was  a  Greek  by  environment.  lie 
united  in  himself  the  three  great  influences  of  that  age.  He 
was  at  home  equally  with  the  Jewish  religion  and  the  Roman 
politics  and  the  Greek  culture.  No  other  apostle  or  Chris- 
tian missionary  had  this  triple  advantage  in  his  work.  Tar- 
sus was  a  busy  and  flourishing  city.  Paul  himself  says,  "I 
am  ...  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city."  10  Xenophon  tells  us 
that  Tarsus  was  a  large  and  prosperous  city  in  his  day. 
Strabo  declares  that  Tarsus  was  one  of  the  three  great  uni- 
versity centers  of  the  world  at  this  time,  sharing  its  pre- 
eminence with  Athens  and  Alexandria  alone. 

( 1 )  It  was  worth  something  to  Paul  to  have  been  born 
in  a  city.  He  was  at  home  in  cities.  He  was  city  bred,  and 
he  liked  best  to  labor  in  the  cities.  He  was  lonesome  in  the 
country,  and  he  never  cared  to  stop  there  long.  He  passed 
through  it  only  that  he  might  reach  another  city.  He  was 
used  to  crowds  and  to  many  intermingling  nationalities  and 
to  the  sight  of  great  interests  well  managed  for  the  good 
of  the  community.  His  city  training  helped  him  to  become 
the  great  organizer  of  Gentile  Christendom  and  to  meet  the 
many  peoples  among  whom  he  labored  without  embarrass- 
ment and  with  something  of  familiarity.  No  one  of  the 
Galikean  peasants  in  that  original  apostolic  company  had  any 
such  training;  and  no  one  of  them  was  prepared,  as  Paul 
was,  to  meet  all  classes  with  confidence  and  to  win  different 
nationalities  to  Christ.  They  doubtless  would  have  been 
confused  and  at  a  loss  where  Paul  could  meet  the  emergency 
easily. 

(2)  It  was  worth  still  more  to  have  been  born  in  a  uni- 

10  Act:  21.  39. 


24  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

versity  city.  Paul  grew  up  in  an  intellectual  atmosphere, 
lie  must  have  met  multitudes  of  students  in  the  streets  of 
Tarsus,  and  an  active  mind  like  that  of  Paul  would  be 
impressed  with  the  value  of  an  education  and  would  be 
sure  to  pick  up  an  appreciation  for  the  Greek  culture. 

4.  Trade.  Paul  was  taught  a  trade.  He  was  a  tentmaker ; 
and  we  know  how  often  the  knowledge  of  this  trade  was  of 
practical  assistance  to  him  in  his  ministry.  He  could  work 
at  it  wherever  he  went.  A  fisherman  could  not  find  employ- 
ment everywhere.  A  tentmaker  could  keep  busy  almost 
anywhere  in  the  Orient,  and  just  as  well  inland  as  on  the 
seashore. 

5.  Schooling.  At  Jerusalem,  where  he  was  sent  to  finish 
his  education  and  to  be  made  a  rabbi,  Paul  entered  the 
school  of  Gamaliel,  the  grandson  of  Hillel  and  the  greatest 
master  of  his  day. 

(1)  With  Gamaliel.  Gamaliel  was  a  generous-hearted, 
broad-minded  man,  more  tolerant  than  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries. He  was  principally  responsible  for  the  intro- 
duction of  Greek  learning  among  the  Jews.  The  Jews  as 
a  race  were  intolerant,  narrow,  exclusive,  proud.  It  was  a 
proverb  among  them,  "Cursed  be  he  that  eats  pork,  and 
cursed  be  he  that  teaches  his  son  the  Greek  wisdom."  The 
rabbis  said :  "The  Law  is  all-sufficient  for  our  learning.  In 
Josh.  1.  8  we  read,  'This  book  of  the  law  shall  not  depart 
out  of  thy  mouth ;  but  thou  shalt  meditate  therein  day  and 
night.'  If  you  would  study  the  Greek  wisdom,  you  must 
first  find  an  hour  that  is  neither  day  nor  night  in  which  to 
study  it."  1X  Gamaliel  defied  this  popular  prejudice.  His 
son  Samuel  says,  "There  were  one  thousand  students  in 
my  father's  school,  five  hundred  of  whom  studied  Greek 
wisdom  and  five  hundred  Jewish  law."  12  It  was  into  this 
school  that  Paul  came,  and  it  was  here  that  he  advanced  in 
the  Jew's  religion  beyond  many  of  his  own  age  among  his 

11  Mcnachoth,  99,  2. 

12  Babha  Kama.  f.  83,  I. 


THE  APOSTLE  25 

countrymen,  even  as  he  already  was  far  in  advance  of  them 
in  his  knowledge  of  Greek  literature  and  life. 

(2)  With  the  Scriptures.  There  was  only  one  textbook 
here,  as  there  had  been  only  one  in  the  synagogue  school  at 
Tarsus.  From  a  babe  Saul  had  known  the  sacred  writings. 
As  a  boy  he  had  committed  many  portions  of  them  to  mem- 
ory. Now  as  a  young  man  he  heard  them  expounded  by  the 
highest  authority.  He  gave  his  days  and  his  nights  to  the 
study  of  them.  They  were  a  lamp  unto  his  feet  and  a  light 
unto  his  path.  He  mastered  their  contents.  Their  theology 
and  their  phraseology  became  so  familiar  to  him  that  they 
were  in  his  mind  and  on  his  lips  continually.  No  one  can 
read  the  Pauline  epistles  without  being  impressed  with  the 
fact  that  Paul  thinks  in  quotations  and  writes  in  quotations 
from  the  Old  Testament. 

All  of  his  own  teaching  is  buttressed  with  proof  passages 
from  the  Sacred  Book.  He  quotes  from  one  hundred  and 
forty-one  different  chapters  and  over  two  hundred  single 
verses.  The  Jewish  Bible  had  the  three  divisions — the  Law, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  Writings.  Paul  quotes  from  all  of 
these  divisions.  He  quotes  from  each  of  the  five  books  of 
the  Law.  In  the  second  division  he  quotes  from  First  and 
Second  Samuel,  First  Kings,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel, 
Daniel,  Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Habakkuk,  Zechariah,  and 
Malachi.  In  the  third  division  he  quotes  from  Psalms, 
Proverbs,  and  Job.  Among  these  his  favorites  would  seem 
to  be  the  book  of  Psalms  and  the  book  of  Isaiah.  From  the 
former  he  quotes  thirty-three  different  psalms,  and  from  the 
latter  twenty-nine  chapters.  He  evidently  knows  all  his 
Bible,  and  he  is  so  saturated  with  scripture  that  he  scarcely 
can  write  a  page  without  directly  or  indirectly  borrow- 
ing from  it.13  Much  of  this  familiarity  with  the  Book  must 
have  been  won  in  Gamaliel's  school. 

Paul  soon  became  a  favorite  with  the  ecclesiastical  author- 


13  Expositor.    Second  series,  vol.  iv,  pp.  icif. 


26  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ities.  He  was  preeminent  in  scholastic  accomplishment  and 
in  religious  enthusiasm.  Possibly  he  was  put  in  charge  of 
the  synagogue  of  the  Cilicians;  and  it  is  altogether  probable 
that  here  he  was  one  of  those  who  could  not  withstand 
Stephen  in  argument.14  We  know  that  he  was  the  chosen 
representative  of  the  Sanhedrin  to  crush  out  the  Nazarene 
fanaticism.  We  know  that  he  consented  to  the  death  of 
Stephen  and  was  present  at  that  first  martyrdom.15  We 
know  that  he  laid  waste  the  church  in  Jerusalem,  entering 
every  house  and  dragging  men  and  women  from  their  homes 
to  prison.16 

While  Paul  was  a  zealot  for  the  Law,  we  may  judge  from 
Rom.  7  and  other  passages  that  he  was  dissatisfied  with  it 
and  was  becoming  more  and  more  convinced  of  the  Law's 
absolute  insufficiency  to  meet  the  deepest  needs  of  the  soul. 
He  tried  to  quiet  the  hunger  of  his  heart  by  a  more  furious 
activity  in  persecution.  In  this  period,  when  he  was  the 
intimate  and  trusted  agent  of  the  Jewish  leaders,  he  came 
to  know  all  that  they  had  to  say  against  the  new  religion  and 
all  that  they  had  to  offer  in  favor  of  the  old.  He  heard 
the  question  argued  again  and  again.  He  heard  the  Scrip- 
tures cited  on  either  side.  He  heard  the  personal  testimonies 
of  the  Christians  who  were  examined  before  the  synagogue. 
He  heard  how  their  lives  were  altered  and  their  whole  walk 
and  conversation  had  been  exalted  by  their  new  experiences. 
He  weighed  these  things  in  his  own  mind  and  heart.  All 
that  happened  to  him  among  both  the  Jews  and  the  Chris- 
tians was  all  unconsciously  preparing  him  for  a  more  effi- 
cient apostolate. 

6.  Conversion.  Then  came  the  journey  to  Damascus  and 
Paul's  conversion.  Rcnan  says  that  a  storm  was  bursting 
on  the  mountains  of  Lebanon,  and  a  flash  of  lightning  with 
sudden  brilliance  struck  Paul  to  the  ground  and  produced 

14  Acts  6.  9,  io. 

15  Acts  8.  i. 
18  Acts  S.  3. 


THE  APOSTLE  27 

in  his  active  brain  an  ophthalmic  fever,  accompanied  by  vio- 
lent hallucination ;  but  in  Paul's  account  and  in  that  of  Luke 
there  is  no  lightning  flash  and  no  fever,  and  in  Paul's  after 
history  there  is  no  hint  of  any  hallucination.  Paul  saw  the 
resurrected  Lord.  He  heard  the  voice  of  Him  in  whom 
dwelt  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  He  was  com- 
missioned not  from  men,  neither  through  man,  but  through 
Jesus  Christ,  and  God  the  Father,  who  raised  him  from  the 
dead.17 

The  greatest  event  in  the  history  of  the  human  race  was 
the  birth  of  Jesus.  The  greatest  event  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
was  his  resurrection  from  the  dead.  After  these  two  mo- 
ments of  primary  importance  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race  and  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  next  most  momentous 
occurrence  in  their  history  was  the  conversion  of  Paul. 
Jesus  founded  the  faith,  but  Paul  was  to  be  the  apostle  of 
its  universal  conquest.  The  other  apostles  had  no  such  expe- 
rience of  conversion  as  Paul  underwent  on  the  road  to 
Damascus.  They  were  attracted  to  the  man  Jesus  and  only 
slowly  came  to  the  belief  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  and 
that  he  had  the  words  of  eternal  life.  There  was  no  sudden, 
sharp  revolution  at  any  turn  in  their  association  with  him. 
On  the  contrary,  Paul  was  struck  to  the  ground  by  one 
blinding  revelation  of  the  Son  from  heaven.  In  one  moment 
he  was  converted  from  a  proud  Pharisee  and  a  fanatical 
persecutor  of  the  Christian  faith  into  a  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ,  called  to  be  an  apostle,  and  separated  henceforth  unto 
the  gospel  of  God.  The  other  apostles  had  known  Jesus 
after  the  flesh.  Paul  knew  him  first  as  the  resurrected  and 
enthroned  Lord  of  men.  Whatever  psychological  prepara- 
tion there  may  have  been  for  this  sudden  transformation  in 
Paul's  character  and  career  the  fact  is  indisputable  that  the 
radical  change  took  place  in  a  single  crisis  moment  of  his 
life.    After  that  Damascus  vision  he  rose  to  his  feet  a  new 

17  Gal.  1.  1. 


28  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

man  with  a  new  purpose  and  new  powers,  eapable  of  turn- 
ing the  world  upside  clown,  and  ready  to  do  all  things  which 
his  new  Master  might  require  of  him  in  the  strength  contin- 
ually sufficient  fpr  his  need.  The  conversion  of  Paul  was 
a  capital  event  in  world  history.  It  was  something  new  in 
the  apostolic  ranks.  A  new  era  in  Christendom  had  dawned 
with  Paul's  new  birth. 

7.  Commission.  Paul  was  thirty  years  of  age  at  the  time 
of  his  conversion.  He  was  martyred  at  the  age  of  sixty. 
For  thirty  years  he  had  been  a  Pharisee.  For  thirty  years 
he  would  be  a  Christian.  In  that  thirty  years  he  had  a 
gigantic  task  to  perform.  A  staggering  burden  was  to  be 
laid  upon  his  shoulders.  In  his  own  person  he  must  accom- 
plish the  work  which  in  the  providence  of  God  had  been 
assigned  to  a  nation ! 

The  Jews  were  the  people  of  promise.  Through  long 
centuries  they  had  been  the  favored  of  God,  among  whom 
alone  the  knowledge  of  the  true  Jehovah  was  preserved  and 
the  expectation  of  the  world-salvation  through  the  Great 
Deliverer  to  be  sent  by  Him ;  and  every  Jew  believed  that 
he,  the  longed-for  Messiah,  when  he  should  come,  would  be 
the  nation's  king.  He  would  exalt  Israel  to  world  dominion, 
and  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  would  be  attracted  by  the 
light  of  his  salvation  and  would  bow  at  Israel's  feet  to 
have  a  share  in  Israel's  blessing.  Then  Jerusalem  wotdd 
be  called,  The  city  of  the  Lord,  the  Zion  of  the  Holy  One 
of  the  chosen  race.18  Isaiah  had  prophesied  it.  The  fathers 
had  awaited  it.    It  surely  would  come. 

The  Messiah  came  in  the  fullness  of  time.  Israel  rejected 
him.  Jerusalem  crucified  him.  He  was  in  the  world  and 
the  world  knew  him  not.  He  came  to  his  own  and  his  own 
received  him  not.  That  nation  which  in  God's  plan  was  to 
have  the  supreme  privilege  of  welcoming  the  world  Saviour 
and  inaugurating  his  kingdom  and  preaching  the  glory  of  his 

18  Isa.  60.  14. 


THE  APOSTLE  29 

name  to  the  eager  and  expectant  earth,  that  nation  which 
was  to  be  the  servant  of  Jehovah  in  the  evangelization  of 
the  many  kindreds  and  peoples  and  tongues,  proved  recreant 
to  its  high  trust  at  the  last ;  and  God's  fury  was  poured  out 
upon  it,  its  fair  land  was  smitten  and  cursed,  and  its  sons 
and  its  daughters  were  sent  wandering  out  through  the  con- 
tinents and  the  centuries,  an  excommunicate,  vagabond  race. 
Israel  had  not  been  wise  in  the  day  of  its  visitation  and  its 
greatest  blessing  had  become  its  greatest  curse.  The  nation 
had  failed  to  rise  to  its  opportunity  and  to  fulfill  its  God- 
appointed  task.  That  task  must  still  be  done ;  and  in  the 
nation's  stead  God  puts  one  man !  With  strong  hand  and 
outstretched  arm  he  laid  hold  of  the  one  choice  spirit  who 
could  do  a  nation's  work.  That  chosen  world  missionary, 
the  most  zealous  and  the  most  successful  propagator  of  the 
universal  religion  of  the  Christ,  was  the  converted  per- 
secutor of  the  Christians,  Saul. 

Henceforth  he  was  an  ambassador  from  heaven,  with 
royal  authority,  and  with  a  divine  commission  which  no  man 
might  question,  and  no  man  or  body  of  men  might  contra- 
vene, and  no  power  on  earth  could  countermand.  Hence- 
forth the  whole  world  was  Paul's  parish,  and  its  conversion 
his  one  aim  in  life.  Single-handed  and  alone  he  set  about 
the  work  which  ought  to  have  been  done  by  his  nation. 
When  at  the  end  he  said,  "I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have 
finished  my  course,"  he  had  proven  himself  worthy  of  the 
greatest  commission  ever  given  to  a  mortal  man.  How  did 
he  prepare  himself  for  his  colossal  enterprise? 

8.  In  Arabia.  After  his  conversion  Paul  tells  us, 
"Straightway  I  conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood:  neither 
went  I  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  that  were  apostles  before 
me :  but  I  went  away  into  Arabia."  19  This  statement  con- 
tains all  the  information  we  have  concerning  this  Arabian 
experience.     How  long  the  sojourn  in  Arabia  lasted  we  do 

luGal.  1.  16,  17. 


3o  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

not  know.  Most  of  the  authorities  are  disposed  to  think 
that  three  years  were  spent  by  Paul  in  these  solitudes,  or  at 
least  the  larger  part  of  the  three  years  which  elapsed  before 
he  went  up  to  Jerusalem. 

We  ask  three  questions  concerning  this  period  in  Paul's 
life: 

(i)  Why  did  Paul  go  to  Arabia?  Would  it  not  have 
seemed  likely  that  he  would  wish  to  go  straight  back  to 
Jerusalem,  or  at  least  to  Palestine,  after  his  conversion?  If 
he  were  to  be  a  Christian,  surely  he  would  wish  to  know 
all  he  could  about  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus.  There  he 
could  find  the  apostles  who  had  companied  with  him  and  the 
disciples  who  had  heard  him  and  had  followed  him  from 
place  to  place  in  Galilee.  Surely,  Paul  would  want  to  get 
acquainted  with  them  as  soon  as  possible  and  to  get  from 
them  all  they  could  impart  of  information  concerning  the 
sayings  and  the  doings  of  the  Lord.  We  would  have 
thought  that  Paul  would  have  considered  it  advisable  to 
confer  with  flesh  and  blood  about  these  things  at  the  first 
opportunity.  He  did  not  think  so.  He  did  not  go  in 
search  of  historical  and  biographical  data.  He  went  away 
into  Arabia.  Arabia  was  a  desert.  He  could  not  confer 
with  flesh  and  blood  there.  He  could  commune  with  God 
and  with  his  own  soul.  He  could  hear  the  message  of  the 
mountains  and  the  disclosures  of  the  desert.  Why  would 
he  go  there  ? 

(a)  For  the  same  reason  that  Jesus  went  into  the  wilder- 
ness after  the  baptism  and  the  revelation  and  the  commis- 
sion at  the  Jordan.  Since  that  date  no  such  staggering 
burden  had  been  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  any  man.  The 
soul  of  Paul  craved  solitude.  He  needed  to  face  the  prob- 
lems which  his  new  experience  suddenly  had  thrust  upon 
him.  He  must  wrestle  with  them  alone.  With  the  demons 
of  temptation  and  the  angels  of  divine  consolation  he  must 
fast  and  pray  and  read  and  study  and  meditate  until  he  saw 
the  truth  too  clearly  ever  to  falter  in  its  advocacy  and  until 


THE  APOSTLE  31 

his  own  soul  was  so  well  grounded  in  the  faith  that  doubt 
would  seem  impossible.  Paul  could  have  found  solitude 
much  nearer  to  Damascus  than  Arabia.  Why  did  he  travel 
to  this  distance  to  spend  his  months  and  years  in  retirement 
and  meditation  ? 

(b)  We  think  that  he  went  to  Arabia  because  Mount 
Sinai  was  there.  He  may  have  dreamed  all  his  life,  as  a 
boy  in  Tarsus  and  as  a  youth  in  Jerusalem,  of  a  journey 
some  day  to  the  very  spot  where  Moses  received  the  tables 
of  the  Law  from  the  hand  of  God.  His  whole  life  had  been 
spent  in  the  endeavor  to  obey  all  the  precepts  of  this  law. 
All  the  religion  of  his  nation  had  been  built  up  about  it.  It 
was  the  birthplace  of  Judaism,  the  most  sacred  spot  upon 
the  earth  outside  of  the  temple  to  the  young  Pharisee.  He 
may  well  have  contemplated  a  pilgrimage  to  it  at  the  first 
opportunity  he  had.  Now  that  he  was  to  be  a  Christian, 
there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  change  this  plan.  There 
was  all  the  more  reason  why  he  should  stand  upon  the 
ground  made  sacred  by  the  primitive  revelation  and  ask  him- 
self what  relation  his  new  revelation  might  bear  to  the  one 
given  to  Moses.  It  might  be  that  God  would  speak  to  him 
on  the  mountain  top  or  from  some  cleft  in  the  rock.  God 
had  spoken  to  him,  and  now  he  must  decide  whether,  like 
Moses,  he  would  become  a  liberator  of  his  people. 

(2)  What  did  Paul  do  in  Arabia?  He  prepared  himself 
for  his  future  ministry.  He  studied  the  Scriptures  and 
waited  upon  God.  He  formulated  his  theology.  He  rea- 
soned it  all  out.  His  system  of  thought  was  complete  before 
he  began  to  preach.  Too  many  men  go  into  the  ministry 
to-day  who  are  not  clear  upon  many  points  of  doctrine. 
They  do  not  know  what  they  believe  concerning  them. 
They  begin  to  preach  and  hope  that  in  time  the  obscur- 
ities in  their  faith  will  clear  away  or  that  they  can  succeed 
in  concealing  their  doubts  from  their  people.  It  was  not  so 
with  Paul.  He  knew  what  he  believed  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  his  ministry.     He  was  as  clear  as  crystal  in 


32  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

all  the  fundamentals  of  his  religious  thought  when  he  came 
out  of  Arabia.  There  never  was  any  doubt  or  uncertainty 
in  his  preaching  after  that.  We  question  whether  there  was 
any  considerable  development  of  doctrine  in  any  of  the 
essentials  of  his  creed  from  first  to  last.  He  had  thought 
it  all  out  before  he  began  to  preach  it  to  others. 

We  can  imagine  the  course  of  his  thought  in  these  days. 
He  began  with  his  own  experience.  His  theology  was  the 
outgrowth  of  his  personal  convictions  based  upon  the  real- 
ities of  his  own  heart  life.  He  had  seen  the  risen  Jesus. 
Then  the  resurrection  of  which  the  persecuted  Christians  had 
talked  was  a  fact.  It  was  upon  that  fact  that  Paul  built  up 
the  whole  structure  of  his  theology.  If  Jesus  was  risen 
from  the  dead  and  seated  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  he  must 
be  the  Son  of  God,  even  as  he  said.  He  must  be  divine. 
Then  why  had  he  been  crucified?  How  Paul  must  have 
pondered  that  problem !  It  was  such  a  stumbling-block  to 
any  Jew.  It  must  have  been  that  his  life  was  a  sacrifice, 
that  he  died  because  we  were  sinners  and  not  because  he  was 
one.  In  undeserved  suffering  through  a  sinless  and  atoning 
life  and  death  the  Divine  Son  had  become  a  Saviour! 
Salvation,  then,  must  be  through  the  acceptance  of  this  fact, 
through  faith  in  the  incarnation  and  the  consequent  faith  in 
the  atoning  life  and  death  of  Jesus;  and  not  through  any 
good  works  which  men  might  or  might  not  do.  We  can  see 
Paul  feeling  his  way  through  the  maze  of  questions  which 
beset  him  and  searching  the  Scriptures  to  see  if  these  things 
were  so  until  he  came  out  into  the  clear  sunlight  of  unalter- 
able conviction.  Given  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  the 
meaning  of  the  crucifixion  followed  as  the  night  followed 
the  day.  Out  of  that  night  of  disaster  there  had  come  the 
day  of  the  world's  redemption.  The  dayspring  from  on  high 
had  visited  us,  and  now  the  Son  could  be  revealed  in  men. 

(3)  What  was  the  result  of  this  Arabian  sojourn?  Paul 
was  the  first  to  see  that  Christians  might  be  liberated  from 
all  bondage  to  the  Law.     There  in  the  sterile  heights  of 


THE  APOSTLE  33 

Mount  Sinai  he  realized  that  the  whole  Pharisaic  program 
was  an  equally  sterile  one.  The  people  under  the  Law  were 
in  bondage.  They  were  the  children  of  the  slave  woman. 
Only  those  who  were  saved  by  grace  could  claim  to  be  free. 
The  terrors  of  the  law  had  to  be  supplanted  by  the  treasures 
of  grace.  Moses  was  only  a  pedagogue  to  lead  men  to 
Christ.  We  think  that  the  doctrine  which  is  set  forth  in  the 
third  and  fourth  chapters  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
was  first  formulated  by  Paul  in  his  stay  in  Arabia.  It  was 
there  at  Mount  Sinai  that  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  was  an  irreconcilable  antagonism  between  the  two 
systems  of  salvation  represented  by  Moses  and  by  Jesus. 
It  was  there  at  Mount  Sinai  that  he  determined  to  devote 
his  life  to  the  overthrow  of  the  one  and  the  establishment  of 
the  other.  Moses  had  liberated  the  people  from  political 
bondage  to  Egypt.  Paul  would  liberate  the  people  from 
spiritual  bondage  to  the  law  of  an  external  commandment. 
He  would  do  it  by  preaching  the  grace  of  God  as  revealed 
in  Jesus. 

9.  In  Syria  and  Cilicia.  "Then  I  came  into  the  regions 
of  Syria  and  Cilicia."20  In  the  hurried  autobiographical 
sketch  which  Paul  gives  us  in  the  first  chapters  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  he  permits  this  short  sentence  to  cover 
ten  or  a  dozen  years  of  his  life.  It  was  the  time  of  his 
obscurity.  He  was  trying  his  powers.  He  was  testing  his 
theology  in  his  preaching.  He  was  proving  himself.  We 
know  about  his  labors  and  his  sufferings  and  his  triumphs 
in  the  later  years.  We  know  little  or  nothing  about  him  in 
this  time.  We  are  sure  that  he  was  busy  in  evangelistic 
service,  and  we  think  it  altogether  probable  that  he  was 
trying  different  methods  and  plans  and  thus  was  laying  the 
foundation  of  his  future  success.  To  Paul  himself  these 
were  unquestionably  the  most  important  years  of  his  min- 
istry.    They  were  not  years  of  sweeping  victory,  but  they 

20  Gal.  I.  21. 


34  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

were  the  years  when  he  was  getting  ready  for  such  things. 
The  world  lost  sight  of  him  for  a  time.  People  heard  only 
that  the  persecutor  had  become  a  preacher  and  that  he  was 
laboring  in  some  remote  district  to  spread  the  Christian 
faith.  These  were  years  of  patient  preparation,  of  appren- 
ticeship in  pioneer  missionary  work.  If  Paul  could  take 
three  years  to  get  his  theology  clearly  formulated,  any  young 
man  can  afford  to  take  an  equal  time  to  attain  a  like  result. 
If  Paul  could  work  for  ten  years  in  obscurity,  surely  any 
young  man  can  be  content  to  labor  for  the  same  length  of 
time  before  he  is  called  into  any  prominent  field. 

We  now  have  seen  how  Paul's  Jewish  descent,  his  Roman 
citizenship,  his  Greek  environment  in  Tarsus,  his  rabbinical 
training  in  Jerusalem,  his  conversion  at  Damascus,  his  years 
of  solitude  and  meditation  in  Arabia,  and  his  longer  years 
of  pioneer  missionary  effort  in  Syria  and  Cilicia  had  helped 
to  prepare  him  for  his  apostolate  to  the  nations.  Looking 
back  upon  his  life  Paul  could  not  see,  and  we  do  not  see, 
how  he  could  have  been  better  equipped  than  he  actually 
was  by  the  various  influences  which  had  molded  his  char- 
acter and  shaped  his  career  and  all  unconsciously  had  fitted 
him  for  world-evangelism.  Everything  had  helped  to  make 
him  ready  for  the  work  he  now  had  to  do.  When  Bar- 
nabas called  him  from  Tarsus  to  Antioch,  a  year  of  testing 
there  made  it  apparent  to  all  that  the  Holy  Spirit  had  sep- 
arated him  for  work  in  wider  fields.  His  missionary  jour- 
neys and  the  experiences  gathered  among  many  peoples  in 
many  lands  finished  the  preparation  of  the  man  who  was 
to  write  the  Pauline  epistles.  We  shall  try  now  to  get  a 
closer  view  of  him. 

II.  Personal  Appearance 

i.  Paul's  Physique.  The  artists  for  the  most  part  have 
been  disposed  to  picture  Paul  with  a  commanding  physique. 
Raphael  puts  a  very  imposing  figure  upon  the  steps  of  the 
Areopagus.    In  the  chapel  window  in  the  Memorial  I  fall  of 


THE  APOSTLE  35 

the  theological  school  in  Evanston  Paul  is  represented  with 
such  a  venerable  and  stately  bearing  that  the  visitors  have 
mistaken  him  for  Moses  more  than  once.  Moses  was  a 
goodly  child  and  probably  had  a  very  impressive  appear- 
ance in  later  years ;  but  unless  all  church  tradition  has  gone 
astray,  Paul  was  not  blessed  with  personal  beauty,  and  his 
bodily  presence  was  rather  insignificant  and  weak.  His 
enemies  in  Corinth  declared  that  was  so,  and  while  Paul 
quotes  their  statement  he  does  not  deny  the  truth  of  it.21 
He  probably  realized  that  his  personal  appearance  was 
neither  a  striking  nor  an  attractive  one. 

All  tradition  agrees  that  Paul  was  a  little  man,  like  John 
Wesley  and  Napoleon.  One  ancient  writer  calls  him  "a 
three-cubit  man."  Most  of  the  modern  authorities  think 
that  he  was  a  chronic  invalid,  and  that  there  were  times 
when  his  malady  disfigured  him  so  that  his  countenance  was 
far  from  being  a  pleasant  one  to  look  upon. 

( 1 )  We  know  that  when  the  heathen  at  Lystra  were  about 
to  offer  sacrifices  to  Barnabas  and  Paul  as  gods  in  human 
form  they  called  Barnabas  Zeus,  probably  because  he  was 
the  more  majestic  and  impressive  in  his  appearance,  and 
they  called  Paul  Hermes,  as  in  appearance  the  smaller  and 
subordinate  man.22 

(2)  In  the  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla,  written  in  the  third 
century,  we  have  the  first  description  of  Paul  in  church 
literature.  It  reads  as  follows :  "He  saw  Paul  coming,  a 
man,  small  in  size,  bald-headed,  bandy-legged,  with  meeting 
eyebrows,  hook-nosed,  full  of  grace."  23  We  are  told  that 
Titus  had  given  Onesiphorus  a  description  of  the  apostle 
Paul  and  that  Onesiphorus  recognized  this  little,  bald- 
headed,  bandy-legged,  hook-nosed  man  coming  down  the 
road  as  the  one  who  met  all  the  terms  of  the  description  and 
the  one  he  had  come  forth  to  seek.    This  earliest  pen  picture 

21  2  Cor.  10.  10. 

22  Acts  14.  12. 

23  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  vol.  viii,  p.  487. 


36  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  the  apostle  Paul  would  seem  to  reproduce  the  general 
church  tradition  concerning  his  personal  appearance.  It 
evidently  was  not  an  imposing  one,  and  his  enemies  might 
well  call  it  "weak." 

(3)  In  the  fourth  century,  in  the  Philopatris  of  the 
pseudo-Lucian,  Paul  is  ridiculed  as  "the  bald-headed,  hook- 
nosed Galilean  who  trod  the  air  into  the  third  heaven, 
and  learned  the  most  beautiful  things."  24 

(4)  In  the  sixth  century  John  of  Antioch  assures  us  that 
"Paul  was  in  person  round-shouldered,  with  a  sprinkling  of 
gray  on  his  hair  and  his  beard,  with  an  aquiline  nose,  grayish 
eyes,  meeting  eyebrows,  with  a  mixture  of  pale  and  red  in 
his  complexion,  and  an  ample  beard."  25 

(5)  In  the  fifteenth  century  Nicephorus  writes:  "Paul 
was  short  and  dwarfish  in  stature,  and,  as  it  were,  crooked 
in  person  and  slightly  bent.  His  face  was  pale,  his  aspect 
winning.  He  was  bald-headed,  and  his  eyes  were  bright. 
His  nose  was  prominent  and  aquiline,  his  beard  thick  and 
tolerably  long,  and  both  this  and  his  head  were  sprinkled 
with  white  hairs."  2G 

Evidently,  all  of  these  descriptions  agree  in  the  main, 
and  as  all  of  the  earliest  portraits  of  the  apostle  confirm 
them,  we  may  conclude  that  the  church  tradition  is  a  correct 
one  and  that  Paul's  personal  appearance  was  not  a  par- 
ticularly prepossessing  one.  If  he  were  short  and  stoop- 
shouldered,  bald-headed  and  bandy-legged  and  hook-nosed, 
he  could  not  win  his  way  among  men  by  any  imposing  per- 
sonal presence.  He  may  have  had  a  kindly  eye  and  a  saintly 
countenance  and  a  general  grace  of  bearing,  but  he  was 
sadly  handicapped  by  his  physique. 

2.  Paul's  Health.  Some  of  Paul's  biographers  think  that 
he  had  an  exceptionally  tough  and  strong  and  elastic  consti- 
tution.    They  point  to  facts  like  these:  (1)  Such  a  life  as 

24  Philopatr.,  12. 
"  X,  257. 
MH.E.,ii,37- 


THE  APOSTLE  37 

Paul  led,  full  of  hardship  and  making  constant  demand  upon 
his  physical  endurance,  would  have  been  impossible  without 
a  considerable  degree  of  physical  stamina.  (2)  The  rapidity 
of  Paul's  recovery  from  illnesses  and  scourgings  and  ston- 
ings  proves  a  remarkable  elasticity  of  constitution  and  a 
remarkable  reserve  of  physical  powers.  There  is  much  to 
be  said  for  this  view  of  the  case.  Paul  endured  more  than 
most  men  could  have  endured,  and  he  never  was  superan- 
nuated.   He  lived  into  a  comparatively  effective  old  age. 

Other  biographers  of  Paul  insist  that  he  was  of  a  very 
fragile  constitution,  and  always  was  a  weak  and  ailing  man. 
They  remind  us  that  the  following  things  were  true  of  him: 

(1)  Paul  frequently  speaks  of  the  infirmity  of  his  flesh27 
and  of  a  thorn  in  the  flesh. 2S  He  tells  us  of  more  than  one  ill- 
ness and  in  one  he  had  despaired  of  his  life. 

(2)  He  seemingly  was  in  need  of  constant  companionship. 
His  traveling  company  consisted  almost  always  of  three 
men.  He  began  with  Barnabas  and  Mark.  Then  he  had 
Silas  and  Timothy,  then  Titus  and  Timothy,  and  then  Luke 
and  Aristarchus.  He  seemed  to  be  very  uneasy  when  left 
alone.  Only  once  in  the  whole  narrative  of  the  book  of 
Acts  is  Paul  left  without  any  attendants.  That  was  at 
Athens,  and  we  read  that  Paul's  spirit  was  much  troubled 
within  him,  and  he  sent  commandment  that  Silas  and 
Timothy  should  come  to  him  just  as  quickly  as  possible.29 
Everywhere  else  some  trusted  friend  is  by  his  side,  so  that 
if  he  is  stricken  down  he  may  be  sure  of  sympathetic  service 
in  his  need. 

(3)  One  of  these  companions,  and  the  one  who  was  with 
him  constantly  in  all  his  later  days,  was  the  beloved  phy- 
sician, Luke.  -  Luke  first  joined  Paul  in  his  missionary 
journeying  just  after  Paul  had  been  suffering  from  some 
physical  disorder  in  Galatia,30  and  he  rejoined  the  apostle 
just  after  that  most  serious  illness  in  which  he  had  come 

"Gal.  4.  14.  M  Acts  17.  15. 

28  2  Cor.  12.  7.  30  Gal.  4.  13. 


38  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

back  almost  miraculously  from  the  very  edge  of  the  grave.31 
From  that  time  Luke  never  left  him.  Henceforth  Paul 
had  the  attendance  and  the  ministrations  of  a  physician  as 
long  as  he  lived. 

What  shall  we  conclude  in  the  face  of  this  array  of  seem- 
ingly contrary  facts?  It  seems  to  us  that  Paul  was  physi- 
cally weak  and  a  chronic  invalid,  but  that  he  had  an  indomi- 
table will  which  compelled  his  body  to  exertions  unparalleled 
and  which  dragged  it  through  sufferings  and  labors  under 
which  any  ordinary  men  and  ordinary  minds  would  have 
succumbed.  We  think  that  he  belongs  to  that  dauntless  and 
unconquerable  handful  of  the  race  who  by  their  accomplish- 
ment in  despite  of  all  physical  ills  put  those  of  us  who  are 
well  and  strong  to  constant  shame.  With  bodies  disabled 
by  distressing  disease  and  racked  with  continual  pain  they 
do  more  than  a  multitude  of  other  men  who  never  know 
what  sickness  is  and  never  struggle  against  any  physical 
handicap.  We  have  all  the  greater  admiration  for  this  little 
man  with  his  colossal  achievement  if  we  conclude  that  we 
find  in  him  one  of  the  best  examples  in  world  history  of  the 
triumph  of  the  spirit  over  all  physical  disabilities  in  the  per- 
sistent prosecution  of  his  work  without  any  thought  of  spar- 
ing himself  because  he  was  stricken  down  sometimes,  or  be- 
cause he  was  sick  most  of  the  time,  or  because  he  was  not 
as  well  as  other  men  all  the  time.  He  did  not  hold  his  life 
of  any  account  as  dear  unto  himself  as  long  as  he  might 
accomplish  his  course  and  the  ministry  which  he  had 
received  from  the  Lord  Jesus.32 

3.  Paul's  Thorn  in  the  Flesh.  In  the  first  verses  of  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  Second  Corinthians  Paul  speaks  of  cer- 
tain ecstatic  experiences  he  had  had  some  fourteen  years 
before,  and  then  he  adds,  "And  by  reason  of  the  exceeding 
greatness  of  the  revelations,  that  I  should  not  be  exalted 
overmuch,  there  was  given  to  me  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  a  mes- 

31  2  Cor.  1.  9. 

32  Acts  20.  24. 


THE  APOSTLE  39 

senger  of  Satan  to  buffet  me,  that  I  should  not  be  exalted 
overmuch.  Concerning  this  thing  I  besought  the  Lord 
thrice,  that  it  might  depart  from  me.  And  he  hath  said  unto 
me,  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee:  for  my  power  is  made 
perfect  in  weakness.  Most  gladly  therefore  will  I  rather 
glory  in  my  weaknesses,  that  the  power  of  Christ  may  rest 
upon  me.  Wherefore  I  take  pleasure  in  weaknesses,  in 
injuries,  in  necessities,  in  persecutions,  in  distresses,  for 
Christ's  sake :  for  when  I  am  weak,  then  am  I  strong."  33 

This  is  the  only  occurrence  of  the  phrase  "a  thorn  in  the 
flesh"  in  the  Pauline  epistles,  and  from  this  passage  we 
gather  the  following  facts  concerning  it. 

(1)  It  was  some  sort  of  an  agonizing  bodily  pain.  The 
translation  "thorn"  probably  is  too  mild  for  the  Greek  word 
ottoXoTp.  It  may  be  rather  a  "stake."  Then  the  experience 
would  not  be  represented  by  the  prick  of  a  thorn  or  even 
the  pain  caused  by  the  deep  piercing  of  a  thorn  which  could 
be  extracted  with  more  or  less  ease.  It  would  be  repre- 
sented better  by  the  agony  of  the  unfortunate  wretch  who 
was  impaled  on  a  stake.  It  would  stand  for  the  most  excru- 
ciating torture  which  a  mortal  might  bear. 

(2)  It  was  recurrent  or  intermittent.  Paul  says  that  he 
prayed  three  times  concerning  it.  It  would  be  natural  to 
conclude  that  these  prayers  were  offered  at  the  time  of  the 
three  illnesses  of  which  we  find  explicit  mention  in  the 
epistles — the  experience  mentioned  in  this  passage,  the 
sickness  in  Galatia,  and  the  later  sickness  in  Asia  Minor,  in 
which  Paul  had  received  the  sentence  of  death.  We  may 
not  be  sure  that  these  were  the  three  occasions  on  which  he 
prayed,  but  it  would  appear  probable  if  a  certain  malady 
which  seemed  to  him  like  a  stake  in  the  flesh  had  fallen  upon 
him  three  times. 

(3)  Possibly  we  may  infer  from  this  context  that  this 
infirmity   was   an    accompaniment   or   a   result   of   certain 

33  2  Cor.  12.  7-10. 


40  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ecstatic  experiences  in  which  Taiil  had  had  visions  and 
voices  not  granted  to  men  in  normal  conditions.  He  had 
been  lifted  at  this  time  into  the  third  heaven  and  might  have 
been  in  danger  of  being  exalted  overmuch. 

(4)  It  would  seem  to  be  apparent  also  that  there  were  cer- 
tain residual  effects  of  this  suffering,  such  as  weakness  and 
mental  depression. 

There  is  another  passage  in  the  epistles  which  most 
of  the  commentators  are  disposed  to  consider  in  connec- 
tion with  Paul's  "stake  in  the  flesh."  In  writing  to  the 
Galatians  he  said,  "Ye  know  that  because  of  an  infirmity 
of  the  flesh  I  preached  the  gospel  unto  you  the  first  time: 
and  that  which  was  a  temptation  to  you  in  my  flesh  ye 
despised  not,  nor  rejected;  but  ye  received  me  as  an  angel 
of  God,  even  as  Christ  Jesus.  Where  then  is  that  gratulation 
of  yourselves?  for  I  bear  you  witness,  that,  if  possible,  ye 
would  have  plucked  out  your  eyes  and  given  them  to  me."  34 
If  the  malady  referred  to  here  is  the  same  as  the  stake  in 
the  flesh  mentioned  in  Second  Corinthians,  we  learn  the 
following  additional  facts  concerning  it. 

(5)  It  was  a  temptation  to  the  Galatians  to  despise  Paul 
and  to  reject  him  and  his  message.  The  word  which  we 
translate  "reject"  means,  literally,  to  "spit  out"  or  execrate 
as  an  object  of  loathing  or  disgust. 

We  may  conclude  therefore,  finally,  that 

(6)  There  was  something  objectively  repulsive  about  this 
disease. 

All  of  the  earliest  writers  on  the  subject  think  of  Paul's 
thorn  in  the  flesh  as  some  form  of  bodily  disease,  and 
modern  thought  seems  to  be  tending  back  to  that  original 
position.  However,  some  other  suggestions  have  been  made 
concerning  it,  and  it  may  be  well  to  notice  them  at  this  point : 

( 1 )  Roman  Catholic  authorities,  such  as  Aquinas,  Bell- 
armine,  Gregory  the  Great,  and  the  Venerable  Bede,  con- 

34  Gal.  4.  13-15. 


THE  APOSTLE  41 

eluded  that  it  was  some  form  of  unclean  thoughts  or  carnal 
temptations  which  kept  recurring  to  the  apostle's  mind  and 
which  were  recognized  by  him  as  messengers  of  Satan 
to  humiliate  him  and  keep  him  dependent  upon  divine  grace 
at  all  times.  The  Vulgate  translated  onoXoip  tq  oagui  by 
stimulus  carnis,  and  that  suggestion  seems  to  have  appealed 
very  forcibly  to  those  who  were  under  the  rigors  of  monastic 
discipline.  Such  an  interpretation  has  been  rightly  called 
"an  outrage  on  the  great  apostle."  It  is  wholly  gratuitous 
to  assume  that  Paul  was  troubled  in  any  such  manner.  The 
tenor  of  all  his  epistles  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  he  lived 
on  a  plane  of  lofty  spiritual  triumph  over  such  things.  He 
claimed  a  charism  of  continence  for  himself,  and  we  know 
nothing  in  his  self -revelation  in  his  epistles  or  in  his  bio- 
graphy in  the  book  of  Acts  to  contradict  this  claim. 

(2)  It  was  but  natural  that  the  great  reformers  should 
react  from  this  Roman  Catholic  exegesis  as  from  so  many 
other  things  connected  with  that  church.  Gerson  and 
Luther  and  Calvin  said  that  the  thorn  in  the  flesh  was  not 
carnal  but  spiritual  in  character.  It  might  have  included 
such  suggestions  of  Satan  as  shrinking  from  apostolic  duties, 
blasphemous  thoughts,  doubts,  stings  of  conscience  for  the 
past,  despair  for  the  present  and  the  future.  It  would  seem 
to  be  sufficient  to  say  of  all  these  things  that  there  is  no  hint 
of  them  in  our  New  Testament.  Then,  surely,  Paul  never 
would  have  gloried  in  things  like  these.  He  would  have 
been  heartily  ashamed  of  them. 

(3)  Some  of  the  still  older  writers — Chrysostom,  Theo- 
doret,  Theophylact,  Augustine,  Hilary,  and  others — thought 
that  all  of  these  passages  referred  to  the  opposition  and  the 
persecution  of  the  Jews.  Wherever  Paul  went  this  antagon- 
ism of  his  own  countrymen  was  as  a  thorn  in  his  side  and 
a  stake  in  his  flesh.  To  mention  only  one  objection  to  this 
suggestion,  the  first  occurrence  of  this  infirmity  as  mentioned 
by  Paul  was  ten  years  after  his  conversion,  and  there  had 
been  a  deal  of  persecution  from  the  Jews  before  that. 


42  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

(4)  So  we  come  back  to  some  form  of  bodily  disease  for 
the  explanation  of  all  the  features  included  in  Paul's  descrip- 
tion of  the  stake  in  his  flesh;  and  we  ask,  "What  form  of 
disease  will  meet  most  nearly  all  the  requirements  of  the 
case?"  Here  again  many  answers  have  been  made  to  the 
question : 

(a)  Tertullian  and  Jerome  said  that  it  was  severe  head- 
ache or  earache,  and  the  unbroken  tradition  in  Asia  Minor 
coming  down  from  the  second  century  has  been  to  that 
effect.  It  is  difficult,  however,  to  see  how  such  an  affliction 
would  make  Paul  an  object  of  contempt  or  of  loathing  to 
the  Galatians.  They  would  be  more  likely  to  have  sympathy 
for  such  suffering  than  to  find  it  repulsive  to  them. 

(b)  Professor  Alexander  suggests  that  Paul  was  subject 
to  Malta  Fever  or  Mediterranean  fever,  and  he  tries  to  show 
that  the  three  illnesses  of  Paul  were  coincident  with  his 
exposure  in  the  regions  affected  by  this  disease  and  that  his 
symptoms  were  the  symptoms  easily  traced  in  this  fever 
to-day.  It  is  accompanied  with  terrible  headaches,  rheu- 
matic-like pains  and  neuralgias,  nocturnal  deliriums,  and 
consequent  impairment  of  the  memory.  After  a  first  occur- 
rence it  is  apt  to  be  repeated.  The  hair  may  fall  out  and 
there  may  be  disagreeable  skin  eruptions. 

(c)  Professor  Ramsay  had  conjectured  malarial  fever. 
This  fever  comes  in  recurrent  attacks  and  it  is  accompanied 
with  a  severe  headache  which  is  said  by  those  who  have 
experienced  it  to  be  "like  a  red-hot  bar  thrust  through  the 
forehead."  Upon  the  basis  of  certain  inscriptions  found  in 
Asia  Minor  Ramsay  argues  that  anyone  with  this  affliction 
was  considered  under  the  curse  of  God.  These  suggestions 
of  fever  seem  to  many  minds  to  fall  short  of  real  adequacy 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  case.  Either  Paul's  lan- 
guage is  unusually  extravagant  in  his  description  of  his 
disease  or  these  fevers  are  too  mild  in  their  character  to 
represent  the  agony,  the  loathing,  and  the  well-nigh  fatal 
result  of  Paul's  infirmity. 


THE  APOSTLE  43 

(d)  Acute  ophthalmia.  Farrar,  Howson,  Lewin, 
Plumptre,  and  many  others  think  that  Paul's  trouble  was 
with  his  eyes.  They  remind  us  of  the  following  facts:  (a) 
Paul  was  blinded  on  the  way  to  Damascus  by  a  light  beyond 
the  brightness  of  the  sun.  His  eyes  were  weakened  by  this 
shock  and  never  may  have  recovered  from  it  in  later  life, 
(b)  The  sojourn  in  Arabia  immediately  after  the  Damascus 
experience  would  have  tended  to  develop  any  inflammation 
of  the  eyes,  and  such  trouble  may  have  been  aggravated 
there  in  the  dazzling  lights  of  the  desert,  (c)  All  travelers 
in  the  Orient  can  testify  to  the  loathsomeness  and  repulsive- 
ness  of  those  who  are  suffering  from  the  acute  stages  of  this 
disease,  (d)  Paul  says  that  the  Galatians  overcame  their 
temptation  in  his  flesh,  and  instead  of  rejecting  him  with 
loathing  they  would  have  plucked  out  their  eyes  and  given 
them  to  him.  Does  not  this  language  suggest  that  he  needed 
better  eyes  than  he  had,  and  that  in  their  great  devotion  to 
him  they  were  ready  to  supply  his  need  with  their  own  eyes, 
if  that  had  been  possible?  (e)  Further  evidence  of  his  de- 
fective eyesight  is  furnished  in  the  fact  that  Paul  could  not 
recognize  the  high  priest  across  the  council  chamber  at  the 
time  of  his  defense  before  the  Sanhcdrin.  (f)  This  may 
account  also  for  his  constant  use  of  an  amanuensis  in  the 
writing  of  his  epistles,  (g)  In  the  adding  of  a  salutation 
with  his  own  hand  at  the  end  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
Paul  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  writes  with  large 
letters ;  and  we  are  told  that  these  large  letters  are  such  as 
a  half -blind  man  would  be  apt  to  use.  (h)  This  disease  in 
its  acute  stages  produces  a  pain  like  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  and 
sometimes  it  causes  brain  troubles  and  epileptic  symptoms. 

Since  our  three  greatest  biographers  of  Paul  have  agreed 
upon  this  suggestion,  it  would  seem  that  there  must  be  com- 
paratively good  ground  for  it,  and  some  of  the  reasons  just 
mentioned  have  some  pertinency.  We  can  believe  that 
Paul's  eyes  were  not  of  the  best.  He  was  a  great  student 
and  reader  all  his  life,  and  students  seldom  have  the  most 


44  PAUL  AND  I  IIS  EPISTLES 

effective  eyesight.  Such  a  trouble,  however,  would  be 
chronic  rather  than  intermittent ;  and  we  would  be  slow  to 
think  that  Paul's  eyes  continually  were  in  such  a  condition 
as  to  excite  a  feeling  of  loathing  or  of  disgust  in  those  with 
whom  he  associated  or  to  whom  he  preached. 

(e)  Epilepsy.  Some  first-class  authorities  have  been 
inclined  to  find  Paul's  thorn  in  the  flesh  in  occasional  epi- 
leptic seizures.  Among  these  we  may  name  Ewald,  Farrar, 
Hausrath,  Holsten,  Hofmann,  Krenkel,  Lightfoot,  Schaff, 
and  Schmiedel.  In  simple  and  devout  minds  there  is  a  nat- 
ural feeling  of  revulsion  against  such  a  suggestion  as  this. 
They  think  they  could  not  believe  in  the  unique  greatness  of 
the  apostle  any  longer,  if  they  found  that  he  was  subject  to 
fits  of  this  sort ;  but  the  authorities  whom  we  have  mentioned 
find  no  such  difficulty.  They  have  no  trouble  in  believing  in 
Paul's  extraordinary  inspiration  and  unparalleled  intellect 
and  incomparable  achievement  even  though  he  were  an  epi- 
leptic. They  find  parallels  in  the  trances  of  Socrates,  the 
fits  of  Mohammed,  the  faintings  and  ecstasies  of  Saint 
Bernard,  Saint  Francis,  and  Saint  Catherine  of  Siena,  and 
in  the  mystical  pathological  experiences  of  Ansgar,  George 
Fox,  Jacob  Boehme,  David  Joris,  and  Swedenborg.  Other 
distinguished  epileptics  in  church  and  world  history  have 
been  Julius  Caesar,  Augustine,  King  Alfred,  Savonarola, 
Pascal,  Petrarch,  Moliere,  Handel,  Peter  the  Great  and 
Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

The  tradition  is  that  when  they  complained  to  Abraham 
Lincoln  that  General  Grant  was  drinking  too  much,  Lincoln 
answered:  "Please  find  out  what  brand  of  whisky  it  is 
which  he  uses.  I  would  like  to  give  some  to  the  rest  of  my 
generals."  He  preferred  national  victories  with  the  rumor  of 
some  personal  failings  to  a  record  of  unblemished  reputa- 
tions and  unbroken  defeats.  After  looking  over  a  list  of  such 
great  names  in  political  and  religious  leadership,  in  poetry, 
music,  and  drama,  in  philosophy  and  theology,  one  wonders 
if  even  epilepsy  would  be  too  high  a  price  to  pay  for  admis- 


THE  APOSTLE  45 

sion  into  such  illustrious  companionship.  At  least  it  is  clear 
that  such  an  affliction  is  not  incompatible  with  surpassing 
clearness  of  intellect  and  all  the  unusual  accomplishments 
of  great  genius. 

On  the  positive  side,  those  who  hold  that  Paul  was  of 
a  highly  nervous  temperament,  subject  to  pathological  dis- 
turbances and  epileptic  seizures,  declare  that  here  we  have 
the  explanation  of  all  the  features  connected  with  Paul's 
description  of  his  thorn  in  the  flesh,  (a)  It  is  recurrent. 
It  may  not  be  felt  through  long  intervals  and  then  may  come 
back  unexpectedly  after  the  lapse  of  years,  (b)  It  is  humil- 
iating. While  it  lasts  the  victim  is  unconscious  and  help- 
less, (c)  It  is  repulsive  to  those  who  look  on.  (d)  It  is 
frequently  accompanied  with  visions  and  ecstasies,  (e)  It 
was  believed  by  the  Jews  to  be  a  visitation  from  Satan, 
(f)  It  was  a  custom  among  the  ancients  to  spit  out  at  the 
sight  of  an  epileptic  seizure,  to  express  their  abhorrence  or 
to  ward  off  the  demonic  possession.  We  recall  that  Paul 
wrote  to  the  Galatians  concerning  his  infirmity,  "Ye  did 
not  despise  it,  nor  did  ye  spit  it  out." 

(/)  Professor  Herzog  in  arguing  against  this  assumption 
of  epilepsy  as  the  recurrent  malady  of  Paul,  concludes  for 
himself  that  Paul's  affliction  consisted  of  "neurasthenic  con- 
ditions in  consequence  of  repeated  overexertions  and  an 
excessive  strain  upon  the  nerve  system,  combined  with 
periodic  nervous  pains." 

What  shall  we  conclude  in  the  face  of  this  conflict  of  opin- 
ions among  the  writers  on  this  subject?  First,  that  we  are 
not  likely  to  reach  any  certainty  in  the  matter  at  this  late 
date.  If  the  facts  were  at  all  clear,  there  would  have  been  a 
more  general  agreement.  Second,  while  the  exact  nature  of 
the  malady  may  be  undetermined,  almost  all  would  agree  that 
Paul  was  subject  to  some  physical  infirmity  which  he 
esteemed  a  great  handicap  but  for  the  endurance  of  which 
he  had  sufficient  grace,  and  in  spite  of  which  he  did  his 
marvelous  work  with  unabating  zeal  and  unflagging  energy. 


46  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Does  not  such  a  man  compel  our  admiration  all  the  more,  a 
man  with  some  fearful  physical  handicap  who  is  spiritually 
strongest  just  when  he  is  physically  weakest,  a  man  who 
glories  in  the  grace  which  enables  him  to  triumph  all  the  time 
in  spite  of  all  the  infirmities  in  his  flesh? 

How,  then,  shall  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  Paul  who 
wrote  these  epistles?  A  short,  almost  dwarfish-looking  man, 
with  a  bald  head  and  a  long  gray  beard ;  a  little  stooped, 
and  with  eyes  rather  weakened  by  much  reading  and  con- 
stant exposure  to  the  fierce  Oriental  sun;  subject  to  a 
physical  infirmity  which  most  men  would  have  considered 
a  sufficient  excuse  for  incapacity  but  which  he  made  only  an 
incentive  to  greater  spiritual  strengthening;  swarthy,  full  of 
energy,  full  of  grace!  Having  suggested  these  things  con- 
cerning the  personal  preparation  and  the  personal  appear- 
ance of  the  apostle  Paul,  do  we  know  what  manner  of  man 
he  was?  By  no  means!  There  may  have  been  a  thousand 
Jews  with  a  personal  preparation  like  that  of  Paul  who  were 
not  in  the  least  like  him  in  any  other  respect.  There  may 
have  been  multitudes  of  Jews  who  resembled  Paul  in  their 
personal  appearance  and  who  never  suggested  in  their  lives 
any  approximation  to  his  mighty  personality.  The  secret  of 
Paul's  unique  career  is  to  be  found  in  his  spirit  and  not  in 
his  outward  appearance  or  the  circumstances  of  his  environ- 
ment and  education.  We  turn  next  to  a  short  study  of  his 
personal  characteristics,  knowing  that  in  these  we  will  come 
closer  to  the  apostle  than  as  yet  we  have  been  able. 

III.  Personal  Characteristics 

Schiirer  says  of  Paul,  "He  was  the  most  living  and  mobile 
spirit  the  world  has  ever  seen."  Shaw  adds  to  this  state- 
ment: "He  was  so  versatile  in  his  gifts  and  interests  that 
we  have  scarcely  noted  one  distinguishing  trait  when  we 
feel  we  must  set  another  beside  it  that  looks  like  its  opposite. 
1  lis  personality  was  magnetic  ;  he  attracted  and  repelled  with 
equal  force.     Many  never  omitted  to  notice  his  insignificant 


THE  APOSTLE  47 

stature,  his  marred  visage,  his  weak  and  often  distorted 
frame,  his  unpolished  and  provincial  speech;  but  to  others 
the  bright  spirit,  the  tender  heart,  and  the  shining  light  of 
the  inspired  eyes  so  transfigured  him  that  they  saw  no 
defect,  and  were  ready  to  receive  him  as  an  angel  of  God. 
He  boasted  of  being  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  and  he  some- 
times showed  the  narrow  strength  of  the  one,  and  sometimes 
the  cultured  humanism  of  the  other.  He  loved  perfectly, 
and  he  also  hated  with  all  his  might.  At  times  he  soothes 
with  the  gentle  touches  of  a  friend,  but  he  can  also  lash 
with  the  fiery  indignation  of  a  foe.  He  is  equally  to  be 
dreaded  by  an  adversary  when  he  endeavors  to  persuade 
and  when  he  determines  to  confound.  There  are  moments 
when  he  is  prudent  and  cautious  to  a  degree;  anon  he  is 
impetuous  and  impulsive  to  the  very  verge  of  rashness. 
Moods  of  passion  and  of  peace,  like  the  changes  of  April 
skies,  alternate  in  his  life.  Now  he  is  so  moved  with  anxiety 
that  he  cannot  rest  or  restrain  his  tears;  again,  he  is  so 
confident  in  God  that  no  disaster  or  infirmity  can  make  him 
dismayed;  now  he  is  humble,  self-abased,  seemingly  abject 
in  his  own  eyes,  and  again  he  is  radiant  and  jubilant,  abso- 
lutely confident  in  the  power  and  triumph  of  the  indwell- 
ing Christ.  One  wonders  if  the  same  man  speaks,  and 
whether  a  single  soul  could  ever  compass  in  its  experience 
such  heights  and  depths."  35  We  shall  attempt  no  adequate 
characterization  of  such  a  many-sided  personality  as  that 
of  the  apostle  Paul.  We  shall  point  out  only  a  few  of  his 
more  prominent  qualities  of  heart  and  life. 

1.  Sensibility,  Sympathy,  Love,  and  Hate.  Paul  is  a 
man  of  tender  sensibilities,  of  boundless  affection  for  his 
friends  and  his  converts  and  all  who  need  his  help  and  his 
gospel.  His  heart  overflows  with  love  to  all  alike.  His 
sympathies  are  always  active  and  always  urgent.  He  is 
ready  to  spend  and  be  spent  in  the  service  of  the  race.  He 
is  an  ardent  spirit,  never  satisfied  with  half-way  measures, 

35  Shaw,  The  Pauline  Epistles,  pp.  490,  491. 


48  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

pressing  on  to  the  uttermost  of  sacrifice  and  devotion. 
Who  are  these  people  for  whom  he  suffers  so  unsparingly 
and  toils  so  terribly  ?  Are  they  poor  slaves  and  old  women 
or  are  they  rulers  of  the  synagogue  and  men  in  high  official 
position  in  the  state?  It  matters  not  who  they  are,  since 
Christ  died  for  them.  All  are  alike  dear  to  Paul.  He  prays 
for  them,  labors  with  them,  pleads,  chides,  is  instant  in 
season  and  out  of  season  for  their  salvation  and  their 
growth  in  grace. 

He  was  an  example  of  perfect  love,  not  put  on  or  pro- 
fessed, but  burning,  unquenchable,  inexhaustible.  It  con- 
strained him,  consumed  him.  He  counted  not  his  life  dear 
unto  himself,  but  laid  it  freely  with  every  dawn  upon  the 
altar  of  sacrifice.  He  loved  his  way  into  the  hearts  of  men. 
LI  is  love  begot  love  in  others.  People  were  devoted  to  him 
because  they  were  so  sure  of  his  devotion  to  them.  Young 
men  especially  were  attracted  to  him.  They  were  ready  to 
leave  friends  and  home  and  every  other  prospect  in  life  to 
attach  themselves  to  him  and  to  share  in  all  the  hardships 
of  his  missionary  career.  Where  he  led,  Timothy,  Titus, 
Luke,  and  others  were  ready  to  follow.  With  him  they 
could  endure  anything  for  the  sake  of  the  cause.  It  was 
so  with  multitudes  of  others  wherever  Paul  went.  They 
forsook  their  ancient  faiths,  they  suffered  social  ostracism 
and  civil  persecution,  they  contributed  out  of  deep  poverty 
and  beyond  their  means,  they  proved  their  loyalty  without 
counting  the  cost.  This  little  man  with  the  great  heart,  to 
whom  love  was  no  profession  but  a  possession,  bound 
hearts  to  him  with  stronger  bands  than  those  of  steel. 

He  had  marvelous  results  in  his  ministry.  He  appealed 
to  Jews  and  Greeks  and  barbarians;  and  men  of  every  race 
and  every  class  in  society  were  converted  and  became  trusted 
champions  of  his  cause.  They  would  have  plucked  out 
their  eyes  for  him.  They  could  not  do  enough  for  him. 
They  wept  when  he  left  them,  and  rejoiced  that  he  was 
coming  to  them  again.     How  courteous  Paul  was  with  all 


THE  APOSTLE  49 

these  people !  How  tender  in  his  treatment  of  them !  They 
never  doubted  the  absolute  sincerity  of  his  interest  in  them 
and  his  love  for  them.  Their  faith  in  him  led  many  to 
faith  in  his  message.  Their  faith  in  him  made  them  faithful 
through  life. 

However,  with  all  this  womanly  tenderness  and  love,  we 
must  not  forget  that  Paul  united  the  opposite  character- 
istics of  inflexible  severity  and  manly  hatred  of  all  which 
set  itself  in  opposition  to  his  Master  and  Lord.  A  volume 
could  be  written  upon  the  manliness  of  the  apostle  Paul. 
We  pass  by  all  the  proofs  of  it  at  this  time  and  notice  only 
how  Paul's  anger  flamed  forth  upon  occasion.  Love  is  not 
inconsistent  with  hate.  It  necessitates  hate.  John  Morley 
has  said  that  an  active  hatred  of  cruelty,  injustice,  and 
oppression  is  perhaps  the  chief  characteristic  of  a  good 
man.36  Paul  had  this  hatred.  He  was  angry  with  injustice 
always.  We  know  that,  because  we  see  that  he  was  ready 
to  demand  his  just  rights  upon  all  proper  occasions. 

The  Philippian  magistrates  sent  word  that  Paul  and  Silas 
might  be  released  from  their  imprisonment;  but  Paul  stood 
on  his  dignity.  He  was  not  willing  to  go  away  quietly 
from  that  prison  into  which  he  had  been  thrown  after  an 
illegal  scourging  and  without  a  trial,  with  all  lowliness  and 
meekness,  with  long-suffering,  forbearing  those  Roman 
magistrates  with  love.  Not  he !  His  eyes  blazed  with  indig- 
nation, and  he  said  to  that  trembling  and  fearing  jailer: 
"They  have  beaten  us  publicly,  uncondemned,  men  that  are 
Romans,  and  every  time  that  the  thongs  struck  my  back 
I  said  to  myself  that  I  would  make  them  smart  for  it  when 
I  had  the  chance;  and  they  have  cast  us  into  prison,  and 
do  they  now  cast  us  out  privily  ?  Nay  verily ;  but  let  them 
come  themselves  and  bring  us  out."37 

There  in  the  council  at  Jerusalem  Paul  declared  that  he 
had  lived  before  God  in  all  good  conscience  until  that  day, 

36  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  i,  p.  196. 

37  Acts  16.  37. 


50  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

and  the  high  priest  Ananias  commanded  those  who  stood 
near  him  to  smite  him  on  the  mouth.  Then  in  continued 
good  conscience  Paul  burst  out  into  unhesitating  denuncia- 
tion, "God  shall  smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall:  and  sittest 
thou  to  judge  me  according  to  the  law,  and  commandest 
me  to  be  smitten  contrary  to  the  law  ?"  3S  He  said  after- 
ward that  he  did  not  know  that  he  was  talking  to  the  high 
priest,  but  we  fail  to  find  any  record  that  he  took  back 
anything  he  had  said  about  him.  He  did  say  that  the  law 
in  Exodus  forbade  one  to  speak  evil  of  a  ruler  of  the 
people;  but  we  judge  that  he  felt  that  he  had  not  been 
speaking  evil  but  telling  the  truth  about  this  one.  His 
anger  was  hot  against  the  illegality  and  the  injustice  of  his 
treatment,  and  he  felt  that  his  language  had  been  justified 
by  that  treatment. 

Paul's  anger  blazed  just  as  fiercely  against  his  antagonists 
in  the  work  of  the  gospel  and  the  perverters  of  the  truth 
of  God.  There  was  that  sorcerer  Elymas  who  tried  to  rob 
Paul  of  his  first  illustrious  convert,  the  proconsul  Sergius 
Paulus.  Paul  faced  Elymas  and,  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
he  said  to  him,  "Thou  son  of  the  devil,  thou  enemy  of  all 
righteousness,  .  .  .  thou  shalt  be  blind  .  .  .  for  a  sea- 
son!"39 Paul  had  poor  eyes  himself.  He  had  been  blinded 
once  by  the  revelation  of  the  truth.  If  he  had  suffered 
like  that  in  getting  at  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  he  had  no 
hesitancy  in  inflicting  blindness  on  any  other  man  in  hope 
of  the  same  result  with  him;  and  if  in  the  case  of  Elymas 
it  did  not  result  in  his  accepting  the  truth,  he  deserved  to 
be  blind  anyway. 

Paul  was  just  as  angry  with  Peter  when  Peter  did  not 
walk  uprightly  according  to  the  truth  of  the  gospel  there 
at  Antioch;  and  he  withstood  Peter  face  to  face  and  before 
the  whole  congregation  he  accused  Peter  of  hypocrisy  and 


38  Acts  23.  3. 

39  Acts  13.  9-1 1. 


THE  APOSTLE  51 

disloyalty  and  he  declared  that  Peter  made  Christ  the  min- 
ister of  sin  and  so  made  void  the  grace  of  God.40 

Paul  did  not  mince  his  words  on  that  occasion,  any  more 
than  he  did  when  he  wrote  more  deliberately  to  the  Gala- 
tians,  "If  an  angel  from  heaven  should  preach  to  you  any 
gospel  other  than  that  which  we  preached  unto  you,  let  him 
be  anathema  ["let  him  be  accursed,  let  him  be  damned"]. 
As  we  have  said  before,  so  now  I  say  again,  If  any 
man  preacheth  unto  you  any  gospel  other  than  that  which 
ye  have  received,  let  him  be  damned."  41  Our  translation, 
"Let  him  be  anathema,"  does  not  sound  so  badly  to  our 
ears,  but  to  those  who  first  read  his  words  they  meant  just 
what  we  mean  when  we  say,  "Let  him  be  damned !"  and 
therefore  that  might  be  the  more  faithful  translation. 

There  is  something  of  "grim  ferocity"  about  this  lan- 
guage. There  is  nothing  delicate  in  it.  It  is  offensive  to 
white-fingered  and  white-cheeked  and  white-livered  people 
who  sit  in  their  easy-chairs  and  read  these  burning  words 
to-day.  They  blush  when  they  read  them,  and  they  blush 
more  when  they  read  that  passage  farther  on  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  in  which  Paul  says:  "I  wish  that  those  who 
unsettled  you  on  the  subject  of  circumcision  would  go  off 
and  castrate  themselves!42  Possibly  in  that  way  they  would 
lose  all  further  interest  in  the  subject."  They  think  that 
such  language  ought  not  to  be  used  in  the  presence  of  ladies. 
Paul  was  not  thinking  about  the  ladies  when  he  dictated 
those  words.  He  was  hot  with  anger  against  the  Judaizers 
who  were  making  trouble  for  him  through  all  the  Gentile 
field.  He  had  to  say  something  which  would  stop  it;  and 
he  did.  His  righteous  anger  brought  about  a  righteous 
result. 

Paul  was  every  inch  a  man.  He  could  fight  manfully 
wherever  any  principle  which  was  worth  fighting  for  was 

40  Gal.  2.  1 1-2 1. 

41  Gal.  1.  8,  9. 
<2Gal.  5.  11. 


52  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

involved ;  and  he  never  fought  as  one  that  beateth  the  air. 
He  hit  hard  and  he  hit  where  it  hurt.  He  was  a  little  man, 
but  nobody  could  run  over  him  without  noticing  it.  He 
called  attention  to  the  fact  with  the  most  forcible  language 
and  the  most  forcible  action  at  his  command.  In  the  Roman 
prison  cell  he  wrote  to  Timothy  to  come  quickly  to  see 
him  again  before  he  died.  He  had  almost  finished  the  last 
letter  he  ever  wrote,  as  far  as  we  know ;  but  before  he 
ended  it  he  said,  "Alexander  the  coppersmith  did  me  much 
evil :  the  Lord  will  render  to  him  according  to  his  works : 
of  whom  do  thou  also  beware ;  for  he  greatly  withstood 
our  words.43  It  was  one  last  flash  of  the  old  hot  anger 
against  the  enemies  of  the  truth  for  the  propagation  of 
which  he  had  given  his  life. 

Did  we  say  that  Paul  was  flaming  with  love,  unquench- 
able, inexhaustible,  consuming  love,  which  won  the  love 
of  others  wherever  he  went?  We  say  now  that  Paul  was 
flaming  with  hate,  ardent,  inflexible,  consuming  hate,  which 
won  for  him  the  hatred  of  multitudes  wherever  he  went. 
There  is  no  inconsistency  between  these  two  facts.  The  one 
necessitated  the  other;  for  Paul  loved  men  and  hated  sin. 
He  loved  the  good  and  true  and  pure,  and  that  meant  that 
he  hated  the  bad  and  the  false  and  the  impure.  With  the 
intensity  of  his  hatred  he  appealed  to  men  and  women  with 
red  blood  in  their  veins  just  as  much  as  by  the  ardor  of  his 
love  he  appealed  to  men  and  women  with  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  within  them.  He  was  so  human  in  his  likes  and 
dislikes  that  some  people  loved  him  and  some  people  hated 
him,  as  they  will  love  and  hate  any  genuine  soul  in  a  world 
full  of  shams  and  the  half-sincere.  He  himself  was  a  flam- 
ing fire  of  love  and  hate,  and  he  either  scorched  and  blasted 
those  with  whom  he  came  into  contact  or  he  kindled  cor- 
responding affection  in  their  hearts. 

2.  Humility  and  Self- Assertion.    We  notice  next  another 

43  2  Tim.  4.  14,  15. 


THE  APOSTLE  53 

apparent  contradiction  in  this  complex  character — the  seem- 
ing inconsistency  between  his  humility  and  his  self-asser- 
tion. Saul  had  said  to  Samuel  in  the  old  narrative,  "Am 
I  not  a  Benjamite,  of  the  smallest  of  the  tribes  of  Israel? 
and  my  family  the  least  of  all  the  families  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin?"  44  Yet  when  he  was  made  king  we  remem- 
ber what  a  royal  soul  he  was.  Taul  had  been  named  after 
him,  and  when  he  changed  his  name  from  Saul  to  Paul  it 
may  have  been  in  the  spirit  of  deepest  humility  which  char- 
acterized the  youthful  Saul,  for  "Paul"  means  "the  little 
one."  He  said,  "I  am  the  chief  of  sinners."  45  He  said, 
"I  am  the  least  of  the  apostles,  that  am  not  meet  to  be  called 
an  apostle."  4G  He  said,  "I  am  less  than  the  least  of  all 
the  saints." 47  He  said,  "Who  is  weak,  and  I  am  not 
weak?"48  Pie  was  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  and  he  was 
at  the  service  of  all  whom  Christ  loved. 

He  was  humble  in  spirit,  ready  to  acknowledge  that  his 
speech  upon  occasion  had  been  hasty  and  open  to  mis- 
conception, and  therefore  willing  to  take  time  and  pains  to 
set  things  right  again.  He  was  prepared  to  make  conces- 
sions to  natural  prejudices  and  to  put  himself  into  com- 
promising situations  as  long  as  fundamental  principles  were 
not  involved.  Yet  at  the  same  time  he  never  allowed  his 
sympathies  to  permit  him  or  anyone  else  to  question  his 
authority  in  its  rightful  field  or  his  superiority  when  his 
apostleship  was  concerned.  When  self-assertion  seemed 
necessary  he  never  hesitated  on  any  ground  of  undue  mod- 
esty or  false  humility.  He  set  himself  up  as  a  model  for 
all  his  converts  everywhere.  He  said  to  them,  "Be  ye 
imitators  together  of  me."  40  He  said  to  them,  "The  things 
which  ye  both  learned  and  received  and  heard  and  saw  in 
me,  these  things  do."  50     He  knew  that  he  behaved  himself 


44  1  Sam.  9.  21.  *"  2  Cor.  11.  29. 

45  1  Tim.  1.  15.  49Phil.  3.  17. 
46 1  Cor.  15.  9.  50Phil.  4.  9. 
47  Eph.  3.  8. 


54  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

holily  and  righteously  and  unblamably  in  all  things  and 
that  his  converts  could  find  no  higher  exemplification  of 
all  the  truth  he  taught  than  his  life  would  furnish  them. 
Yet  with  all  this  self-assertion  of  his  realization  of  the 
ideal  in  his  religious  experience  there  is  the  consummate 
humility  which  alone  could  make  it  possible.  He  says,  "I 
live,  yet  not  I.  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ;  and 
it  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  51 

Paul  knew  that  he  was  the  superior  of  all  the  apostles. 
He  knew  that  he  had  a  better  conception  of  the  scope  of 
the  gospel  and  that  he  had  made  a  better  record  in  the 
preaching  of  it  than  any  of  them.  He  said,  "In  nothing 
was  I  behind  the  very  chiefest  apostles."  52  Yet  with  all 
this  self-assertion  of  his  unquestioned  superiority  there  was 
the  humility  which  made  him  great.  He  said,  "I  labored 
more  abundantly  than  they  all ;  yet  not  I,  but  the  grace 
of  God  which  was  with  me."  53  Paul  was  too  sincere  a 
man  not  to  recognize  the  plain  facts  of  the  case — that  he 
had  no  equal  in  the  early  church  in  the  clearness  of  his 
insight  and  the  completeness  of  his  achievement.  Yet  he 
was  too  humble  a  man  to  believe  that  any  credit  belonged 
to  him  rather  than  to  the  abounding  grace  of  God  which 
alone  had  made  it  possible.  In  himself  he  was  nothing, 
but  he  could  do  all  things  through  the  Christ  who  strength- 
ened him. 

3.  Courage  and  Patience.  In  this  consciousness  we  find 
the  secret  of  the  courage  and  the  patience  which  were  so 
characteristic  of  Paul  in  all  his  ministry.  He  said,  "I  am 
not  ashamed  of  the  gospel."  54  and  he  never  was  ashamed 
of  anything  which  the  gospel  gave  him  to  do.  He  walked 
through  the  world  with  brow  unabashed  and  with  the  firm 
step  of  a  conqueror.  He  was  God's  nobleman,  in  the  service 
of  heaven.  He  stood  before  the  crowned  monarchs  of 
earth  as  their  teacher,  accuser,  superior ;  and  they  trembled 

61  Gal.  2.  20.  M  1  Cor.  15.  10. 

52  2  Cur.  12.  11.  54  Rom.  I.  16. 


THE  APOSTLE  55 

before  the  power  of  his  words.  He  met  the  philosophers 
in  Athens  with  a  higher  truth  than  their  philosophies  had 
dreamed  of ;  and  some  of  them  accepted  and  believed.  He 
faced  the  mobs  of  Jerusalem,  Ephesus,  and  Philippi  with 
fearless  bravery ;  and  they  always  felt  that  they  had  to  do 
with  a  dauntlessly  royal  spirit  when  they  tried  to  lay  hands 
upon  him.  He  was  a  man  always.  He  was  a  hero  every- 
where. He  had  the  absolute  courage  of  his  convictions, 
and  there  are  not  many  men  in  any  century  or  in  all  the 
centuries  of  whom  that  can  be  said  in  truth. 

It  was  an  act  of  supreme  courage  with  which  he  began 
his  Christian  career.  We  read  the  account  of  his  conver- 
sion and  then  the  statement  follows  that  straightway  in  the 
synagogues  of  Damascus  he  proclaimed  that  Jesus  was  the 
Son  of  God.  All  who  heard  him  were  amazed,  for  this  was 
the  man  who  had  been  aflame  with  zeal  against  the  Chris- 
tians, making  havoc  of  all  who  called  upon  the  name  he  now 
proclaimed  as  divine.  Paul  knew  there  would  be  multitudes 
everywhere  who  would  say  that  he  was  a  turncoat  and  a 
traitor,  but  he  never  hesitated  on  that  account.  With  com- 
pleteness of  decision  he  espoused  the  new  cause  with  all  the 
fervor  he  had  displayed  in  the  old,  and  then  without  waver- 
ing he  fought  the  good  fight  to  the  end.  Henceforth  his 
most  bitter  antagonists  were  his  old  friends.  Naturally 
enough  they  hated  him  with  a  deadly  hatred,  and  they  did 
all  they  could  to  hinder  his  work  and  to  rob  him  of  the 
fruits  of  his  labors,  and  they  lay  in  wait  for  him  to  assassin- 
ate him.  He  was  in  peril  from  his  own  countrymen  all  the 
time. 

He  was  on  his  way  to  Jerusalem  for  the  last  time,  and  in 
every  city  the  Holy  Spirit  testified  to  him  that  bonds  and 
afflictions  awaited  him  there,  but  Paul  said,  "I  am  ready 
not  to  be  bound  only,  but  also  to  die  at  Jerusalem  for  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  55     Many  a  man  would  have  fal- 

65  Acts  21.  13. 


56  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

tered  somewhere  along  the  line  subject  to  continuous  fusil- 
lade and  enfilade ;  but  Paul  never  flinched.  He  went  straight 
forward  through  the  midst  of  his  foes,  never  swerving  for 
a  moment,  never  compromising  at  any  point.  He  antagon 
ized  the  prejudices  of  the  Jews,  he  trampled  upon  their  con- 
ventions, he  outraged  their  sensibilities,  he  defied  their  con- 
servatism. Pie  was  ready  to  do  and  to  die  in  behalf  of  the 
truth  he  upheld.  God  had  not  given  to  him  the  spirit  of 
a  coward.  If  John  Mark  was  a  coward,  let  him  go  home 
to  his  mother ;  but  never  let  him  ask  to  go  with  Paul  again 
until  he  had  proven  that  he  had  more  courage  than  a  mouse. 
The  apostle  of  the  lion  heart  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  a  spirit  of  fear  fulness.  He  exhorts  Timothy  to  stal- 
wartness  of  conduct  and  character;  and  he  gave  to  all  of 
his  disciples  and  converts  an  example  of  unflinching  fidelity 
to  the  cause. 

His  dreams  at  night  reproduced  his  meditations  by  day. 
At  Corinth  the  Jews  had  driven  Paul  out  of  their  synagogue, 
and  doubtless  there  were  many  to  counsel  more  moderation 
in  his  manner  of  preaching  unpalatable  truth,  but  in  a  vision 
of  the  night  the  Lord  stood  by  him  and  said,  "Be  not  afraid, 
but  speak  and  hold  not  thy  peace."  56  At  Jerusalem  the  mob 
had  threatened  to  tear  Paul  to  pieces,  and  the  soldiers  had 
rescued  him  and  shut  him  up  in  their  prison ;  and  that  night 
the  Lord  stood  by  him,  and  said :  "Courage,  Paul !  Cheer 
up !  All  that  you  have  suffered  here  at  Jerusalem  you  shall 
also  suffer  at  Rome."  57  In  the  Euraquilo  storm,  when 
everybody  believed  that  all  would  be  lost,  Paul  said  to  them, 
"There  stood  by  me  this  night  an  angel  of  God  whose  I 
am,  whom  also  I  serve,  saying,  Fear  not,  Paul."  5S  Taul 
never  was  afraid,  not  even  at  night,  not  even  in  his  dreams. 
He  was  fearful  that  his  converts  might  not  be  steadfast. 
He  was  fearful  that  he  himself  might  not  give  all  that  was 

66  Acts  1 8.  9. 
57  Acts  23.  11. 
68  Acts  27.  23,  24. 


THE  APOSTLE  57 

in  him  of  strength  of  mind  and  body  and  will  to  his  Master ; 
but  he  never  was  fearful  of  any  danger  or  any  opposition 
of  devils  or  men. 

They  stoned  Paul  at  Lystra  and  dragged  him  out  of  the 
city,  supposing  that  he  was  dead.  When  he  returned  to  con- 
sciousness he  rose  to  his  feet  and,  instead  of  running  away 
as  fast  as  he  could,  he  "entered  into  the  city"  59  again.  Then, 
after  going  on  to  Derbe  with  Barnabas,  "they  returned  to 
Lystra." 60  Lystra  had  no  terrors  for  Paul,  even  though 
he  just  had  been  stoned  nearly  to  death  in  that  place.  He 
wrote  to  the  Corinthians  that  he  would  tarry  at  Ephesus 
until  Pentecost,  and  he  gave  them  two  reasons  for  that  deci- 
sion :  "A  great  door  and  effectual  is  opened  unto  me,  and 
there  are  many  adversaries."61  Most  of  us  would  have 
said,  "But  there  are  many  adversaries."  Paul  said  "and," 
and  we  can  imagine  the  smile  of  satisfaction  with  which  he 
dictated  that  statement.  He  enjoyed  a  good  fight,  or, 
whether  he  enjoyed  it  or  not,  he  was  a  good  fighter. 

Much  of  the  material  in  the  Pauline  epistles  was  occa- 
sioned by  some  controversy,  and  there  never  is  a  hint  any- 
where in  them  that  Paul  is  willing  to  shade  the  truth  in  the 
least  degree  in  order  to  curry  favor  with  any  opponent. 
He  stands  by  his  guns.  His  courage  mounts  as  perils 
thicken.  There  were  dangers  and  disappointments  all  along 
the  way.  There  was  suffering  and  sacrifice  of  every  sort. 
There  were  incredible  toils  and  continual  hardships. 
Through  them  all  Paul  approved  himself  as  a  good  soldier 
of  Jesus  Christ.  When  Paul  was  converted  and  called  to 
be  the  chosen  vessel  of  the  Lord  in  the  campaign  for  the 
world's  evangelization  the  message  given  him  through 
Ananias  was,  "I  will  show  him  how  many  things  he  must 
suffer  for  my  name's  sake."62  Paul  foresaw  the  suffering 
and  deliberately  committed  himself  to  his  career.  He  ran 
the  race  set  before  him  without  asking  that  the  race  course 

69  Acts  14.  20.  61 1  Cor.  16.  9. 

60  Acts  14.  21.  62  Acts  9.  16. 


58  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

be  swept  clear  of  all  pebbles  or  sharp  stones  or  thorns.  1  lis 
vigor  never  abated.  His  pace  never  lessened.  He  never 
paused  for  the  filing  of  a  complaint  or  for  anything  else. 
He  finished  his  course  with  unrelaxing  effort  and  undimin- 
ished zeal.  His  patience  and  perseverance  never  have  been 
surpassed.  Have  his  devotion  and  consecration  ever  had  a 
parallel  ? 

If  any  man  think  himself  qualified  to  do  it,  let  him  sit  and 
sneer  at  the  apostle  Paul ;  but  he  challenges  a  comparison 
between  himself  and  the  apostle  when  he  does  it.  His  little 
head  and  his  little  heart  and  his  little  record  of  achievement 
look  puny  and  pitiable  by  the  side  of  those  of  Paul.  We 
think  that  Paul  might  well  say  to-day  what  he  said  to  the 
Corinthians  long  ago,  "We  are  not  bold  to  number  or  com- 
pare ourselves  with  certain  of  them  that  commend  them- 
selves :  but  they  themselves,  measuring  themselves  by  them- 
selves, and  comparing  themselves  with  themselves,  are  with- 
out understanding."  63  "All  the  peaks  soar,  but  one  the  rest 
excels" — Paul  of  the  high  heart,  Paul  the  unafraid. 

4.  Consecration  and  Devotion.  Paul's  courage  was  born 
of  his  faith  and  devotion.  His  consecration  was  complete. 
He  was  on  the  Lord's  side  for  good  and  for  all.  His  faith 
was  unfailing  that  the  Lord  was  on  his  side  for  good  and 
for  all.  "Perhaps  in  all  human  story  there  never  has  been 
a  life  that  surpassed  Paul's  in  its  abandonment  to  one  great 
purpose.  He  could  say  as  almost  none  other  ever  conld, 
'This  one  thing  I  do.'  The  love  of  Christ,  the  service  of 
Christ  to  which  that  love  inspired,  and  the  consuming 
desire  to  be  like  Christ,  were  the  master-impulses  of  his  life. 
No  earthly  terror  or  prize  or  ambition  ever  conld  draw  him 
from  his  allegiance."  Gi  He  could  say,  "For  me  to  live  is 
Christ."  65  He  was  the  slave  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  man  of 
magnificent  powers,  all  of  them  utterly  consecrated  to  the 

63  2  Cor.  10.  12. 

64  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  489. 
66  Phil.  1.  21. 


THE  APOSTLE  59 

service  of  the  cross — intellect,  affections,  will,  body,  soul, 
spirit,  wholly  given  to  his  Lord.  His  heart  was  undivided. 
His  eye  was  single.  To  his  mind  the  plan  of  salvation  was 
unique,  supreme,  all-sufficient.  He  saw  the  Christian  sys- 
tem clearly  and  he  saw  it  whole.  He  never  attempted  to 
serve  two  masters.  It  never  entered  his  heart  to  think  of 
such  a  thing.  With  him  it  was  Christ  first,  Christ  last, 
Christ  all  the  time.  His  one  aim  was  to  represent  Christ 
worthily  in  the  world  and  to  the  world. 

The  other  disciples  had  asked  the  Master,  "What  then 
shall  we  have?"66  When  Faul  once  had  had  a  vision  of 
Jesus  his  only  question  was,  "What  shall  I  do,  Lord?"67 
Thereafter  he  lived  the  faith  he  preached.  His  Christian 
character  was  his  Christian  walk.  Every  step  he  took  was 
in  the  way  of  the  Lord's  commandments.  There  never  was 
a  better  example  of  concentration  of  effort  and  consecra- 
tion of  soul.  He  could  apply  to  his  life  the  words  of  the 
forty-fourth  psalm,  "For  thy  sake  are  we  killed  all  the  day 
long;  we  are  accounted  as  sheep  for  the  slaughter."68 
He  was  in  afflictions,  in  necessities,  in  distresses,  in  stripes, 
in  imprisonments,  in  tumults,  in  labors,  in  watchings,  in 
fastings,  in  obscurity,  in  poverty,  in  dishonor  of  evil  reports ; 
and  through  it  all  he  was  as  true  to  his  mission  and  his 
Master  as  though  it  cost  him  nothing  at  all.  Then  there  were 
days  of  peace  when  he  was  flattered  by  friends  and  glorified 
by  his  devoted  followers,  and  he  felt  that  he  possessed  all 
tilings  and  stood  in  need  of  nothing;  and  he  was  just  as 
humble  in  spirit  and  faithful  in  service  as  before.  Circum- 
stances did  not  change  him.  He  was  true-hearted  and  whole- 
hearted to  the  end. 

5.  Saintliness.  It  follows  from  what  we  have  said  that 
Paul  was  characterized  by  saintliness  of  conduct  and  char- 
acter beyond  any  other  of  the  more  prominent  heroes  of  the 

66  Matt.  19.  27. 

67  Acts  22.  10. 

68  Rom.  8.  36. 


60  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Christian  faith.  We  know  more  about  Paul's  inner  life  than 
we  know  of  that  of  any  other  Christian  in  the  early  cen- 
turies. There  is  a  degree  of  self-revelation  in  the  epistles 
which  has  no  parallel  in  Christian  literature  until  Augustine 
wrote  his  Confessions.  When  we  compare  the  Confessions 
of  Augustine  with  the  epistles  of  Paul  we  see  at  once  the 
striking  and  almost  irreconcilable  difference  between  the 
two.  Augustine's  spiritual  autobiography  is  rightly  named. 
It  is  a  series  of  confessions  of  shortcomings  and  failures 
and  defects,  with  occasional  glimpses  of  profound  philos- 
ophy and  constant  longings  for  holiness  unattained.  Now 
it  is  a  strange  fact  that  in  all  the  epistles  of  Paul  there  are 
no  such  confessions  of  spiritual  inconsistencies  and  defi- 
ciencies and  delinquencies  as  we  find  in  the  lives  of  most  of 
the  saints.  Paul  refers  to  himself  and  to  his  manner  of  life 
as  a  Christian  and  to  his  ministry  as  an  apostle  again  and 
again,  both  in  his  speeches  recorded  in  the  book  of  Acts 
and  in  his  epistles,  and  never  once  does  he  express  any  peni- 
tence for  wrongdoing  of  any  sort.  He  was  the  chief  of 
sinners  before  he  was  converted.  He  acknowledges  that 
fact  without  any  hesitation.  After  his  conversion  there  is 
no  acknowledgment  of  sin.  On  the  contrary,  in  passage 
after  passage  he  confidently  affirms  that  he  has  been  an 
example  to  all  believers  in  purity  of  motive  and  integrity  of 
life.  He  appeals  to  his  converts  again  and  again  to  testify 
to  the  holiness  and  unblamableness  of  his  behavior  among 
them  at  all  times. 

If  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  may 
be  taken  as  a  picture  of  the  apostle's  experience  as  a  Phari- 
see and  before  his  conversion,  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  same 
epistle  just  as  certainly  ought  to  be  received  as  a  faithful 
portrayal  of  the  apostle's  experience  after  his  conversion. 
It  begins  with  "no  condemnation"  for  those  who  walk  not 
after  the  flesh  but  after  the  Spirit,  and  it  ends  with  "no 
separation"  between  the  Christ  and  those  who  are  more  than 
conquerors  through  him.    It  is  no  ideal  picture  of  an  impos- 


THE  APOSTLE  61 

sible  state  of  grace.  It  had  been  realized  in  Paul  himself. 
At  the  point  of  loyalty,  devotion,  and  consecration  his  con- 
science was  clear.  He  never  had  any  condemnation  be- 
cause of  any  conscious  deficiency  in  these.  From  the  mo- 
ment of  his  conversion  to  the  day  of  his  death  he  seems 
never  to  have  known  any  separation  in  mind  and  heart,  in 
soul  and  spirit  from  his  Lord.  In  him  Paul  found  sufficient 
grace  and  comfort  and  salvation.  In  him  Paul  gained  the 
victory  all  the  time  and  was  made  more  than  conqueror. 

If  Paul  had  backslidden  at  any  time,  he  is  too  honest  a 
soul  to  have  concealed  the  fact.  If  he  had  been  conscious 
of  falling  into  disfavor  with  the  God  whom  he  served  or 
the  Christ  whom  he  proclaimed,  he  could  not  have  repressed 
the  acknowledgment  of  it  in  some  one  of  his  utterances  or 
his  writings.  His  theology  is  the  outgrowth  of  his  own 
experience.  In  some  one  of  the  theological  epistles  he  would 
have  made  room  in  his  system  for  failures  which  seemed 
to  him  inevitable.  He  never  does  make  any  allowance  for 
sin.  In  some  one  of  his  more  personal  and  intimate  epistles 
he  would  have  been  sure  to  let  slip  the  fact  that  he  himself 
had  not  met  his  ideal.  No  confession  of  that  sort  ever 
escapes  him.    There  was  no  such  confession  to  make. 

We  must  not  forget  in  this  connection  what  we  have  said 
concerning  Paul's  humility.  He  has  no  spirit  of  Pharisaic 
self-congratulation.  His  testimony  is  always  to  the  glory  of 
his  Lord  and  to  the  sufficiency  of  his  grace.  It  is  always, 
"Not  I,  but  Christ."  There  is  no  proud  boasting  of  his  own 
achievement.  There  is  only  humble  testimony  to  the  salva- 
tion he  had  found  in  the  gospel.  Paul  had  found  salvation 
from  sin,  and  he  believed  that  it  was  to  the  glory  of  his 
Master  and  for  the  good  of  his  fellow  men  that  he  should 
give  continuous,  humble  testimony  to  that  fact.  That  testi- 
mony occurs  in  page  after  page  of  his  epistles.  Why  should 
any  one  hesitate  to  accept  it?  Why  should  any  one  be  dis- 
posed to  discount  it  in  any  particular?  Why  may  we  not 
conclude  that  in  Paul  we  have  one  magnificent  example  of 


62  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  all-sufficiency  of  divine  grace  to  meet  every  human  need  ? 
Then  why  may  we  not  conclude  to  our  comfort  that  what 
was  possible  with  Paul  has  been  made  possible  to  many 
others  of  the  more  obscure  followers  of  the  revelation  of 
grace  in  the  gospel?  There  in  the  beginning  books  of  the 
New  Testament  we  find  the  picture  of  Jesus,  the  Saviour. 
In  the  Pauline  epistles  we  find  a  picture  worthy  of  a  place  in 
the  same  volume — that  of  Paul  the  saint.  It  is  to  the  great- 
est glory  of  Jesus  that  his  life  and  death  were  instrumental 
in  giving  to  the  world  such  a  character  and  such  a  life  as 
that  of  Paul.  The  sainthood  of  Paul  is  a  worthy  proof  of 
the  Saviourhood  of  Jesus. 

6.  Imperialism.  Paul  was  no  Galilaean  peasant  but  a 
citizen  of  the  Roman  empire.  His  outlook  always  was 
imperial.  No  other  disciple  or  apostle  at  the  time  of  his 
call  had  such  a  wide  field  opened  before  him.  He  set  out 
to  be  a  world  conqueror.  He  took  the  world  for  his  parish 
from  the  very  beginning.  He  was  a  little  man  with  a  great 
soul,  like  John  Wesley.  He  never  was  satisfied  with  the 
territories  traversed  or  the  work  already  done.  He  always 
planned  wider  itineraries  and  greater  things.  He  was  the 
incarnation  of  enterprise.  He  had  a  boundless  ambition. 
His  plans  always  outran  his  possibilities.  He  dreamed  of 
a  kingdom,  world-wide  and  eternal.  No  other  apostle  had 
such  an  imperial  program.  No  other  apostle  did  so  much 
to  realize  such  a  program.  It  was  his  imperialism  which 
made  Paul  the  greatest  missionary  the  Christian  Church 
has  produced. 

"He  is  preeminently  and  irresistibly  dominated  by  the 
impulse  of  travel,  which  betokens  the  true  missionary  nature. 
It  is  'ever  onward'  with  such  a  temper,  lie  has  something 
of  the  insatiability  of  the  great  conqueror,  whose  hunger 
for  new  territories  is  whetted  as  with  demoniac  power  by 
every  fresh  conquest.  As  Jesus's  leading  trait  is  the  shep- 
herd's feeling,  so  Paul's  is  the  missionary  impulse.  Every- 
where he  is  only  on  the  way ;  he  has  but  one  thought — to 


THE  APOSTLE  63 

make  the  word  speed  on  swiftly,  while  his  eagerness  for 
travel  only  grows  with  time.  He  scales  the  snowy  heights 
of  Taurus,  whence  he  is  drawn  to  the  valleys  of  Lycaonia. 
He  travels  on  to  the  TEgean,  where  in  a  vision  a  man  of 
Macedonia  appears  to  him  and  cries:  'Come  over  and  help 
us!'  He  comes  to  Corinth,  where  ships  sail  to  Italy;  and 
straightway  he  writes  to  Rome,  as  always  in  his  prayers 
making  request,  "if  by  any  means  now  at  length  he  may 
be  prospered  by  the  will  of  God  to  come  unto  them."  69 
Voices  across  the  sea  call  to  him,  'Come' ;  in  hours  of  soli- 
tude he  thinks  of  those  'who  have  not  heard.'  This  cry  of 
'Ever  onward'  is  the  special  watchword  of  his  life.  He  is 
led  and  borne  everywhere  by  the  prophetic  word:  'How 
beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  him  that  bring- 
eth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth  peace,  that  bringeth  good 
tidings  of  good,  that  publisheth  salvation,  that  saith  unto 
Zion,  Thy  God  reigneth !' 7"  These  words  of  Isaiah  led 
him  on  his  journey ings.  Many  a  time  he  looks  back  with 
pride  upon  the  distance  he  has  come,  and  boasts  that  the 
triumphal  procession  in  which  Christ  leads  him  through 
the  streets  of  the  world  leaves  behind  it  the  savor  of  his 
knowledge  in  every  place  like  incense."  71 

Paul  founded  churches  wherever  he  went,  and  he  estab- 
lished them  so  firmly  that  they  all  stood  when  he  had  gone. 
His  desire  was  to  press  on  into  places  where  Christ  had  not 
been  preached  as  yet.  He  would  have  gone  everywhere  as 
a  pioneer  missionary,  if  that  had  been  possible  to  one  man 
in  one  lifetime.  His  church  imperialism  and  his  insatiable 
missionary  enthusiasm  were  born  of  his  theological  uni- 
versalism.  He  believed  that  it  was  the  will  of  God  that  all 
men  were  to  be  saved,  and  he  believed  that  Jesus  would 
never  look  upon  the  travail  of  his  soul  and  be  satisfied  until 


69  Rom.  1.  9. 

70  Rom.  10.  15;  Isa.  52.  7. 

71  Hausrath,  Times  of  the  Apostles,  vol.  iii,  p.  133. 


04  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

that  goal  had  been  reached.  Therefore  he  claimed  all  the 
nations  for  his  Lord. 

He  realized  that  the  Gentiles  must  be  freed  from  the  Jew- 
ish yoke  before  they  would  be  tempted  to  come  to  Christ. 
Therefore  he  was  the  apostle  of  freedom  from  the  old 
ordinances  unto  all  liberty  of  the  new  life.  If  he  were  liv- 
ing to-day,  he  never  would  attempt  to  force  an  Occidental 
Christianity  upon  the  Orient.  He  would  leave  every  nation 
free  to  develop  a  Christianity  of  its  own  type,  as  long  as 
it  was  true  to  the  fundamentals  of  the  common  faith.  He 
knew  that  a  world-wide  church  could  not  be  a  church  of 
universal  uniformity.  It  would  represent  unity-in-difference 
— unity  in  essentials  with  widest  liberty  in  everything  else. 
We  are  just  coming  back  in  this  century  to  the  sanity  and 
the  clarity  of  Paul's  vision  in  these  things.  The  church  is 
beginning  to  realize  that  the  one  church  of  the  Christ  which 
is  to  conquer  the  world  need  not  be  one  in  creed  or  in 
customs  as  long  as  it  is  one  in  loyalty  to  the  Lord.  With 
Paul's  universalistic  outlook  there  is  of  necessity  something 
of  Paul's  breadth  of  tolerance  and  universal  charity. 

7.  Summary.  Can  we  form  now  any  clear  conception 
of  this  marvelous  man?  He  was  small  of  stature  and  weak 
in  appearance  but  compounded  all  of  pluck.  He  may  have 
been  feeble  with  fever  at  times,  or  he  may  have  suffered 
with  some  chronic  complaint,  or  he  may  have  been  subject 
to  recurrent  attacks,  but  nevertheless  he  must  have  had  a 
physical  fiber  in  him  which  was  capable  of  most  extraor- 
dinary endurance.  As  a  mere  physical  achievement  his  life- 
work  seldom  has  been  equaled  among  men.  The  secret 
of  his  career  is  to  be  found  in  his  indomitable  soul  and  his 
complete  consecration.  Difficulties  might  multiply,  friends 
might  dissuade,  everything  might  seem  to  be  in  opposition, 
and  yet  when  Paul  saw  his  duty  clearly  set  before  him  he 
went  straight  forward  without  swerving. 

He  had  something  of  the  serene  indifference  to  all  conse- 
quences involved  in  his  obedience  to  the  law  of  his  Lord 


THE  APOSTLE  65 

which  is  characteristic  of  the  ocean  tides  and  the  stellar 
courses. 

And  with  joy  tho  stars  perform  their  shining 

And  the  sea  its  long  moon-silvered  roll; 
For  self-poised  they  live,  nor  pine  with  noting 

All  the  fever  of  some  differing  soul. 
Bounded  by  themselves  and  unregardful, 

In  what  state  God's  other  works  may  be, 
In  their  own  tasks  all  their  powers  pouring, 

These  attain  the  mighty  life  you  see. 

When  Matthew  Arnold  asks  how  his  own  soul  may 
become  "vast"  like  these,  the  answer  given  is,  "Live  as  they." 
Paul  lived  as  they,  in  the  absoluteness  of  his  obedience  and 
the  singleness  of  his  devotion.  Paul  attained  a  "mighty 
life"  because  he  was  a  man  of  mighty  powers  concentrated 
upon  a  single  aim.  That  aim  was  the  conversion  of  men 
to  the  practice  of  the  holy  life  consequent  upon  a  genuine 
faith  in  his  risen  and  triumphant  Lord.  That  made  him 
the  world's  greatest  missionary. 

He  was  of  a  highly  nervous  temperament,  capable  of 
ecstasies  and  visions,  and  of  the  most  tender  sensibilities, 
capable  of  ardent  love  and  fervent  hate.  He  had  as  keen 
an  intellect  as  Alexander.  He  was  as  courteous  and  gentle- 
manly as  Julius  Caesar.  He  was  as  great  a  leader  of  men 
as  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  He  has  done  as  much  to  mold 
the  history  of  the  succeeding  centuries  as  any  or  all  of  these. 
Pie  was  the  most  original  and  creative  mind  in  the  early 
church.  He  was  the  most  able  and  the  most  efficient  of  all 
the  apostles.  In  religion  and  theology  and  practical  affairs 
he  is  the  most  outstanding  and  commanding  personality  the 
Christian  faith  has  produced. 

If  we  knew  only  what  he  had  done,  we  would  be  disposed 
to  give  him  a  foremost  place  in  church  and  world  history. 
If  we  had  only  his  biography  in  the  book  of  Acts,  we  would 
have  been  certain  of  his  preeminent  position  for  all  time. 
However,   we  are  more  than    fortunate   in  having  Paul's 


66  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

autobiography  in  the  epistles.  We  not  only  know  what  he 
did  but  we  have  a  large  part  of  what  he  wrote.  It  is  to  this 
invaluable  treasure  that  we  turn  next,  for  a  general  view  of 
Paul's  writing's. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  EPISTLES 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  EPISTLES 

I.  Form 

i.  Uniform  Outline.  Generally  speaking,  there  is  a  uni- 
form outline  in  the  Pauline  epistles.  We  have,  first,  the 
greeting  which  frequently  sounds  a  keynote  for  the  whole 
following  discussion.  This  is  succeeded  by  a  thanksgiving 
for  the  progress  made  in  the  gospel  graces  and  gifts  by 
those  to  whom  Paul  is  writing.  Then  comes  the  doctrinal 
portion,  usually  the  most  important  and  largest  part  of 
the  epistle.  The  practical  portion  comes  next,  applying  all 
the  truths  previously  set  forth  to  the  problems  of  personal 
and  community  life.  This  is  followed  by  personal  messages, 
individual  salutations,  and  any  minor  business  or  other 
details  Paul  may  care  to  mention.  Then  the  epistle  ends 
with  a  brief  autograph  ratification  of  all  which  has  been 
written.  This  is  the  general  method  of  Paul's  procedure, 
subject  to  modification  at  any  point  at  any  time,  for  Paul 
is  a  free  spirit  and  refuses  to  be  tied  down  to  any  formulas 
that  may  seem  to  him  to  hinder  the  free  flow  of  his  thought. 
There  is  enough  uniformity  in  the  epistles,  however,  to  sug- 
gest this  general  outline :  Greeting,  thanksgiving,  doctrine, 
exhortation,  details,  autograph  signature. 

2.  Peculiarities  in  the  Greetings.  ( i )  In  ancient  letter- 
writing  it  was  customary  for  the  writer  to  put  down  his 
name  first,  with  his  official  or  other  titles  attached.  It  is 
noteworthy  that,  after  the  first  two  epistles,  Paul  calls  him- 
self an  "apostle"  in  all  but  the  Epistles  to  Philemon  and  to 
the  Philippians.  The  Macedonian  epistles  are  character- 
ized with  an  unusual  intimacy  and  affection,  and  the  same 

69 


yo  PAUL  AND  TITS  EriSTLES 

thing  is  true  of  the  Epistle  to  Philemon.  Paul  did  not  need 
to  emphasize  his  apostleship  in  writing  to  these  personal 
friends ;  but  in  his  more  formal  addresses  to  churches  and 
church  officials  he  is  careful  to  insist  upon  his  apostolic 
dignity.  (2)  In  the  first  five  epistles  in  the  chronological 
order  Paul  addresses  the  "church"  in  Thessalonica  and  in 
Corinth  and  the  "churches"  of  Galatia.  (3)  In  the  later 
church  epistles  he  addresses  "the  saints."  (4)  The  ordi- 
nary Greek  salutation  was  "Joy !"  The  ordinary  Hebrew 
salutation  was  "Peace!"  Paul  unites  these  two  in  the  salu- 
tations of  all  his  epistles,  and  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  he 
adds  a  third  term — "mercy." 

3.  The  Four  Groups.  Paul's  missionary  career  covered 
approximately  thirty  years  of  his  life.  All  of  the  Pauline 
epistles  in  our  New  Testament  were  written  in  the  latter 
half  of  this  period.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  while  Paul 
was  in  half  his  life  a  Pharisee  and  in  half  his  life  a  Christian, 
this  latter  half  of  his  life  may  be  evenly  divided  in  the 
same  way  by  his  literary  activity.  For  fifteen  years  Paul 
wrote  nothing  of  which  we  have  any  trace  to-day.  Then 
in  fifteen  years  the  thirteen  Pauline  epistles  were  written. 
It  is  another  strange  fact  that  these  epistles  fall  into  four 
groups,  separated  from  each  other  by  intervals  of  approx- 
imately five  years  each. 

These  groups  are  as  follows:  (1)  Those  of  the  second 
missionary  journey,  First  and  Second  Thessalonians,  about 
A.  D.  53.  (2)  Those  of  the  third  missionary  journey,  First 
and  Second  Corinthians,  Galatians,  and  Romans,  about 
A.  D.  58.  (3)  Those  of  the  first  Roman  imprisonment, 
Philemon,  Colossians,  Ephesians,  and  Philippians,  about 
A.  D.  63.  (4)  Those  written  between  Paul's  liberation  from 
the  first  Roman  imprisonment  and  his  martyrdom,  First 
Timothy,  Titus,  Second  Timothy,  about  A.  D.  67.  These 
are  only  approximate  dates,  and  the  more  exact  time  of 
the  writing  of  each  epistle  will  be  determined  in  connection 
with  our  study  of  each  of  them;  but  these  approximate  dates 


THE  EPISTLES  71 

will  serve  to  show  this  strange  periodicity  in  Paul's  literary- 
career.  For  fifteen  years  he  writes  nothing,  as  far  as  we 
know.  In  fifteen  years  he  writes  everything  we  have  from 
his  pen.  In  a  little  more  than  one  year  he  wrote  more  than 
half  of  the  Pauline  epistles  in  bulk,  though  not  in  number. 
All  of  the  epistles  fall  into  chronological  groups,  with 
approximate  intervals  of  five  years  between  them. 

These  chronological  groups  have  their  own  characteristics, 
and  they  have  been  variously  named  by  various  authorities. 
One  alliterative  grouping  is  that  of  the  Primer  Epistles,  the 
Pillar  Epistles,  the  Prison  Epistles,  and  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 
In  their  relation  to  the  apostle's  ministry  these  groups  have 
been  called  the  missionary,  the  evangelical,  the  edificatory, 
and  the  valedictory.  With  reference  to  their  style  or  manner 
they  have  been  distinguished  as  the  didactic,  the  argumenta- 
tive, the  contemplative,  and  the  hortatory.  As  to  their 
material  contents  they  have  been  classified  as  the  eschatolog- 
ical,  the  soteriological,  the  Christological,  and  the  ecclesi- 
astical epistles.1  These  Pauline  epistles  form  about  one 
fourth  of  our  New  Testament.  In  bulk  they  are  about  equal 
to  the  Gospel  according  to  Luke  and  the  book  of  Acts  com- 
bined. The  writings  of  Paul  and  of  the  Pauline  disciple, 
Luke,  form  the  larger  part  of  the  contents  of  the  New 
Testament. 

We  can  be  almost  certain  that  some  of  the  Pauline  epistles 
have  been  lost.  The  marvel  is  not  that  that  should  be  true, 
but  that  so  many  of  them  have  been  preserved.  In  2  Thess. 
3.  17  Paul  writes  that  his  salutation  with  his  own  hand  is 
the  token  of  genuineness  in  "every  epistle,"  and  the  phrase 
surely  would  seem  to  imply  that  Paul  had  written  to  the 
Thessalonians  more  than  one  previous  epistle.  It  may  indi- 
cate the  existence  of  forged  epistles  even  at  this  early  date, 
put  into  circulation  under  the  assumed  authority  of  the 
apostle's  name.     If  this  is  not  the  meaning,  the  language 


1  See  Findlay,  The  Epistles  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  p.  247. 


72  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

would  seem  to  indicate  a  number  of  genuine  epistles ;  and 
since  we  know  of  only  one  preceding  this,  we  must  conclude 
that  Paul's  correspondence  was  much  larger  than  that  which 
we  possess.  He  may  have  written  many  letters  to  the  Thes- 
salonians  and  to  others  of  which  no  trace  has  been  preserved. 
The  book  of  Acts  mentions  no  one  of  the  epistles  we  have. 
There  may  have  been  a  number  of  others  which  it  equally 
ignores  and  of  which  no  mention  is  made  in  the  extant 
epistles,  and  which  were  utterly  lost  at  so  early  a  period  that 
no  tradition  concerning  them  has  come  down  to  the  later 
day. 

In  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  Paul  says  that  he 
would  not  terrify  them  by  his  letters  and  then  he  quotes 
from  his  adversaries  who  say,  "His  letters  .  .  .  are  weighty 
and  strong."  2  If  these  men  were  saying  this  before  our 
Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  written,  they  must 
have  known  of  more  than  one  epistle  previously  written  to 
this  church,  and  the  plural  "letters"  would  seem  to  indicate 
quite  a  number  of  them.  In  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corin- 
thians Paul  refers  to  some  things  he  had  written  in  some 
former  epistle.  "I  wrote  you  in  my  epistle  to  have  no  com- 
pany with  fornicators."  3  Evidently,  our  First  Corinthians 
was  not  the  first  epistle  sent  to  Corinth. 

If  we  did  not  have  the  suggestions  of  these  passages  it 
would  be  hard  to  believe  that  the  total  correspondence  of 
Paul  was  represented  by  the  epistles  in  our  canon.  It  may 
be  that  he  wrote  nothing  in  that  first  fifteen  years  of  his 
apostolate,  but  it  seems  almost  incredible  that  it  should  be 
so.  It  may  be  that  Paul  had  intervals  of  literary  activity 
during  the  last  fifteen  years  of  his  life  with  five  year  periods 
of  inactivity  intervening,  but  it  seems  most  improbable.  It 
would  be  altogether  likely  that  many  of  the  minor  epistles  of 
Paul  were  thrown  into  somebody's  wastebasket  shortly  after 
their  reception,  and  there  may  have  been  scores  of  these 

2  2  Cor.  io.  9,  io. 
3 1  Cor.  5.  9. 


THE  EPISTLES  73 

just  as  important  as  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  but  not  so 
fortunate  in  their  preservation.  We  trust  that  all  of  the 
longer  and  more  important  epistles  have  been  preserved ; 
but  who  knows  whether  some  of  the  Pauline  correspondence 
which  would  have  been  deemed  by  us  just  as  precious  as 
some  of  that  which  we  have  may  not  have  perished  during 
the  apostle's  lifetime  or  shortly  thereafter  through  accident 
or  through  carelessness  or  in  the  deliberate  destruction  of 
some  persecution  ?  We  wonder  that  any  of  the  brittle 
papyrus  leaves  should  have  survived  fire  and  flood  and  all 
the  ravages  of  time  long  enough  to  be  copied  by  those  who 
realized  their  imperishable  value  to  the  church  and  to  the 
world. 

II.  Style 

The  style  of  the  Pauline  epistles  is  largely  determined 
by  the  character  of  the  man  who  wrote  them.  His  personal 
peculiarities  account  for  their  peculiar  characteristics.  For 
this  reason  the  epistles  as  a  whole  have  been  called  "the 
autographs  of  Paul."  He  has  written  himself  into  them. 
His  face  looks  out  from  these  pages.  His  voice  is  heard 
in  these  lines.    His  spirit  is  manifest  throughout. 

"As  a  portrait  painter,  observing  the  salient  and  distinc- 
tive lines  and  contours  of  light  and  shade,  and  the  grada- 
tions of  color  in  an  individual  living  human  face,  and  re- 
producing these  separate  and  varied  elements  upon  his 
canvas,  one  by  one,  in  a  complete  and  consistent  whole, 
finds  he  has  fixed  there  that  subtle  but  unmistakable  attri- 
bute of  the  invisible  spirit  which  we  call  individuality,  so 
that  even  the  unlearned  and  ignorant,  looking  at  his  handi- 
work, say  with  one  accord,  Tt  is  he !'  even  so,  the  altogether 
exceptional,  distinctive,  but  mutually  harmonious  traits 
which  lurk  here  and  there  in  unstudied  variety  on  well-nigh 
every  page  of  these  wonderful  letters,  leave  in  the  average 
mind  no  suggestion  of  a  blurred  and  tenuous  figment  of  the 
imagination,  like  an  idealized  and  artificial  character  in  a 
novel  or  a  play,  but  the  sharp  and  deep  impress  of  a  living, 


74  PALL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

breathing,  thinking',  feeling'  person  of  flesh  and  blood."4 
Paid  paints  his  own  portrait  as  he  writes,  and  he  does 
it  better  than  anyone  else  can  hope  to  do  it.  Shakespeare 
could  conceal  his  own  personality  in  his  writing.  We  read 
his  plays  and  we  know  little  or  nothing  about  him.  Paul  is 
a  writer  of  another  sort.  We  read  his  epistles  and  we  come 
to  know  him  more  and  more  intimately  with  every  page. 
Lie  himself  is  visible  at  every  turn.  He  is  autobiographical 
most  fully  when  he  is  so  least  consciously.  Therefore  we 
shall  find  that  the  characteristic  features  of  style  in  these 
epistles  correspond  very  exactly  with  the  characteristics  of 
the  man. 

i.  Paul's  Disregard  of  Nature.  Paul  was  born  in  the 
city  of  Tarsus,  and  he  grew  up  among  the  city  sights  and 
sounds.  He  was  educated  in  the  capital  city  of  Jerusalem. 
He  was  on  his  way  to  the  city  of  Damascus  when  he  was 
blinded  by  the  revelation  of  the  risen  Lord.  Thereafter  his 
apostolic  career,  as  far  as  we  have  the  record  of  it,  was  spent 
almost  wholly  in  cities.  Antioch,  Tarsus,  Philippi,  Thessa- 
lonica,  Athens,  Corinth,  Ephesus,  Jerusalem,  Rome  were  the 
objective  points  in  his  missionary  journeys  and  the  central 
points  in  his  life-ministry.  City  life  is  not  conducive  to  a 
love  of  nature.  Cities  are  built  by  men  and  are  filled  with 
artificial  products.  On  their  paved  streets  and  between 
their  brick  walls  the  beauties  of  nature  seldom  are  seen. 
Possibly  it  was  his  city  training  in  Tarsus  and  in  Jerusalem 
which  had  blinded  Paul's  eyes  to  all  such  things  up  to  the 
time  of  that  blinding  revelation  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
and  after  that  revelation  only  spiritual  realities  seemed 
worthy  of  note  in  his  writing  and  his  preaching. 

Christ  crucified  and  Christ  risen  was  the  one  subject  of 
his  sermons.  God  spoke  to  him  through  visions  and  revela- 
tions and  in  spiritual  presence  and  power.  God  never  spoke 
to    Paul    through    the    thunder   clouds    and    the    mountain 


Buell,  The  Autographs  of  Saint  Paul,  pp.  60,  61. 


THE  EPISTLES  75 

heights.  The  birds  in  the  air  and  the  flowers  in  the  field 
and  the  rippling  stream  and  the  ocean  wave  had  no  message 
of  beauty  and  poetic  inspiration  for  him.  He  seems  to 
have  been  almost  absolutely  bereft  or  possibly  devoid  of 
any  susceptibility  to  the  natural  beauties  of  the  world 
around  him.  He  was  born  and  bred  within  sight  of  the 
snow-clad  hills  of  Taurus.  He  sailed  the  blue  Mediterran- 
ean again  and  again.  He  tarried  long  under  the  balmy 
skies  and  in  the  enchanting  landscapes  of  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor.  He  saw  vastly  more  of  God's  wonders  by  land  and 
by  sea  than  David  or  Jesus  ever  saw.  These  things  made  no 
impression  upon  him.  They  were  no  inspiration  to  him. 
They  furnished  him  with  no  illustration  even.  There  is 
much  more  sympathy  with  nature,  more  of  poetic  feeling 
and  insight  in  a  single  psalm  of  David,  a  single  prophecy 
of  Isaiah  or  Amos,  a  single  parable  of  our  Lord  than  in 
all  the  epistles  of  Paul. 

The  Old  Testament  is  full  of  poetry.  There  is  an  appre- 
ciation of  nature's  ministries  and  messages  in  the  songs  of 
Moses,  Deborah,  David,  and  Solomon.  The  major  and  the 
minor  prophets  are  moved  with  the  majesties  of  the  heavens 
and  the  natural  beauties  of  Palestine.  Jesus  was  a  nature 
lover  and  a  poet-preacher  of  God's  ever-present  and  ever- 
active  Fatherhood  as  revealed  in  his  care  for  all  the  creat- 
ures of  his  hand.  In  the  market  the  sparrows  which  were 
sold  for  a  farthing,  and  in  the  upper  air  the  free  birds  which 
were  fed  though  they  did  not  gather  into  barns,  spoke  to 
him  of  the  greater  worth  of  human  souls  and  the  still  greater 
solicitude  of  the  Father  for  them.  As  he  walked  by  the 
wayside  and  saw  the  field  flowers  clothed  with  more  than 
regal  beauty  and  yet  on  a  day  cut  down  and  cast  into  the 
oven  fire,  he  thought  of  the  heavenly  Father's  greater  care 
of  his  children  and  of  his  anxiety  to  supply  their  daily  needs. 
When  Jesus  saw  the  vultures  which  gathered  where  a  car- 
cass would  furnish  a  feast  he  thought  of  the  invitation  to 
speedy  judgment  which  spiritual  corruption  presents.     He 


76  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

looked  upon  the  fiery  splendor  of  the  morning  and  the  even- 
ing clouds  and  thought  of  the  still  greater  glory  which  the 
heavens  would  reveal  at  the  time  of  the  final  coming  of  the 
Son  of  man.  He  delighted  in  mountain  solitudes.  He 
taught  by  the  shore  of  the  sea.  With  great  satisfaction  to 
his  soul  he  walked  through  the  harvest  fields.  He  was 
happiest  when  he  was  in  closest  touch  with  nature  rather 
than  when  he  was  in  the  city  or  the  synagogue. 

Alas,  when  we  turn  from  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  from  the  poetry  of  the  gospel  narratives  of  the  Christ 
into  the  book  of  Acts  and  the  following  epistles  of  Paul 
we  find  that  almost  every  vestige  of  nature  poetry  has 
vanished  from  the  sacred  book.  There  is  neither  music 
of  birds  nor  fragrance  of  flowers  in  the  epistles  of  Paul. 
There  are  no  mountain  majesties,  no  cloud  glories.  There  is 
no  artistic,  aesthetic,  poetic  sense  of  nature's  marvelous 
beauty  and  life.  Paul  was  a  great  apostle  and  a  great 
polemic;  but  he  was  no  such  lover  of  nature  as  Jesus  was. 
Possibly,  it  was  the  way  he  was  made  and  the  way  he  was 
brought  up.  It  was  his  loss  and  it  is  our  loss  that  so  much 
space  in  our  Bible  has  no  trace  of  nature's  ministry  to  man. 
There  are  flights  of  impassioned  rhetoric  in  Paul's  writings 
and  there  are  passages  of  surpassing  beauty  of  expression 
and  sublimity  of  thought,  but  all  his  similes  and  illustra- 
tions are  gathered  from  the  manners  and  customs  of  men 
and  suggest  the  courtroom,  the  schoolroom,  the  synagogue, 
the  city  rather  than  the  freedom,  the  majesty,  the  beauty 
of  the  world  outside. 

Whitefield  crossed  the  Atlantic  thirteen  times  and  traveled 
the  length  of  our  Atlantic  seaboard  again  and  again ;  and  yet 
his  sermons  show  no  trace  of  anything  seen  or  learned  from 
the  natural  wonders  he  must  have  met  in  his  travels  and 
voyages.  John  Calvin  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  Swiss  mountains  and  glaciers  and  lakes,  but  his 
works  reflect  absolutely  nothing  of  all  of  these.  Calvin's 
Institutes,  like  Paul's  epistles,  might  have  been  written  by 


THE  EPISTLES  77 

a  man  who  had  spent  his  whole  life  in  a  city  garret  or  a 
prison  cell  and  never  had  seen  spring  blossoms,  summer 
harvests,  and  autumn  fruits,  or  any  of  nature's  wonderful 
symphonies  of  color,  sound,  and  life.  Saint  Bernard  rode 
all  day  along  the  Lake  of  Geneva  and  never  saw  its  crystal 
purity,  its  depths  of  blue,  and  the  diamond  flashes  of  the 
sunlight  from  each  rippling  wave.  He  was  absorbed  in  his 
meditations — at  home  with  his  own  soul.  In  the  evening 
Saint  Bernard  asked  his  companions  where  the  Lake  of 
Geneva  was. 

Paul  seems  to  have  been  like  these  men.  His  life  was 
a  spiritual  life.  His  joys  were  of  the  mind  and  soul  rather 
than  of  the  sense.  His  interests  were  in  the  spiritual 
improvement  of  the  race  and  not  in  the  enjoyment  of 
material  things.  His  world  was  the  world  of  men,  the  world 
of  spiritual  conflicts,  the  world  of  sinning,  sorrowing,  strug- 
gling humanity,  the  world  without  salvation  and  in  starv- 
ing need  of  salvation  from  sin.  There  was  all  the  enchant- 
ing loveliness  of  the  Greek  sky  and  sea,  of  Olympian  heights 
and  Arcadian  vales,  bathed  in  sunshine  and  radiant  in 
natural  beauty  everywhere.  Others  had  seen  and  appre- 
ciated these  things,  but  Paul  was  blind  to  it  all.  Palestine 
was  a  land  of  promise.  Its  heavens  declared  the  glory  of 
God  and  its  firmament  showed  his  handiwork.  Its  mountains 
and  its  hills,  its  fruitful  trees  and  its  cedars  praised  the  Lord 
whose  glory  was  so  manifest  in  both  heaven  and  earth. 
David  had  sung  of  these  things.  Jesus  had  enjoyed  them. 
Paul  never  saw  them. 

The  tempest  swept  from  summit  to  summit  of  Lebanon 
with  lightning  flash  and  thunder  roll,  and  then  a  rainbow 
spanned  the  vault  of  heaven  for  a  while,  and  then  God  hung 
golden  glories  through  all  the  evening  sky.  Jesus  reveled  in 
it  all  and  praised  the  Father  for  the  wonder  and  the  majesty 
and  the  beauty  of  it  all.  Paul  was  reading  a  book  or  arguing 
with  some  adversary,  and  he  did  not  know  even  that  there 
had  been  a  storm  or  a  rainbow  or  any  glories  in  the  even- 


78  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ing  sky.  That  was  the  difference  between  those  two  men. 
Jesus  shunned  Jerusalem  and  sought  for  a  sunny  spot  on  a 
mountainside  as  the  preferable  place  for  the  preaching  of 
his  great  sermon.  He  loved  God's  out-of-doors,  and  he  lived 
in  the  open  by  night  and  by  day.  Paul  sought  the  cities 
and  preached  by  preference  in  the  synagogue.  He  worked 
at  the  loom  by  day  and  he  preached  indoors  at  night.  He 
gave  himself  to  the  study  of  congregations  rather  than  of 
constellations.  Jesus  drew  his  illustrations  from  the  life 
of  nature.  Paul  drew  his  illustrations  from  the  cities  and 
the  works  of  men. 

He  saw  the  costly  public  buildings  of  Corinth  and  the 
immediately  adjacent  hovels  of  the  very  poor,  and  they  gave 
him  the  suggestion  for  one  of  the  most  beautiful  figures 
his  epistles  contain,  the  gold,  silver,  and  costly  stones  over 
against  the  wood,  hay,  stubble,  so  subject  to  the  flames.5 
He  lived  for  some  years  in  the  vicinity  of  the  great  temple 
of  Artemis  at  Ephesus,  and  it  gave  him  the  conception  of 
the  far  more  magnificent  temple  of  the  Christian  Church.0 
The  arches  and  monuments  and  palaces  and  villas,  building 
and  built  in  the  great  cities  through  which  he  passed,  gave 
him  his  metaphor  of  "edification"  which  is  found  so  seldom 
in  any  earlier  literature  and  which  is  so  frequent  in  Paul's 
speech  that  we  almost  may  consider  it  his  peculiar  property.7 

He  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  military  conquest  and 
domination.  lie  found  soldiers  everywhere.  He  never 
got  beyond  the  reach  of  their  influence  and  presence. 
Whether  free  to  roam  anywhere  in  the  vast  empire  or 
chained  to  a  soldier  and  living  with  him  day  by  day,  he  saw 
military  companies  marching  and  individuals  standing  sen- 
tinel, the  representatives  of  war  and  conquest,  of  law  and 
order  in  every  place.  This  soldier  life  was  forced  upon 
his  attention  all  his  life  long  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  find 

6  i  C<<r.  3.  9-15. 

8 Eph.  1.  23;  2.  20-22. 

7  Acts  20.  32;   I  Cor.  8.  1 ;   14.12. 


THE  EPISTLES  79 

a  multitude  of  military  metaphors  in  his  writings.  The  sol- 
dier's abstinence,  the  continual  warfare,  the  armor  of  light, 
the  long  train  of  the  Roman  triumph  furnish  him  with  many 
suggestions  concerning  the  conditions  and  the  conquests  of 
the  Christian  life.s 

The  athletic  metaphors  of  Paul  are  even  more  character- 
istic. Palestinian  Pharisees  never  would  have  been  present 
at  the  games  and  contests  of  the  Greek  gymnasia  and 
national  feasts ;  but  Paul  had  been  familiar  with  them 
since  his  boyhood  in  Tarsus  and  he  was  interested  in  them 
all  his  life  long.  He  went  to  see  them,  drew  many  lessons 
from  them,  and  made  them  of  constant  use  in  his  teaching. 
In  the  epistles  we  find  frequent  figures  taken  from  the 
gymnastic  exercises,  the  games,  the  spectators,  the  race 
course,  and  the  running.  If  Paul  learned  much  from  the 
drill-ground,  the  armory,  and  the  barracks,  he  learned  still 
more  from  the  stadium,  the  gymnasia,  and  the  palestra. 
He  likens  the  divine  life  to  a  race  course.  He  claims  to 
be  a  good  athlete  in  the  spiritual  contest.  He  boxes  effec- 
tively. He  runs  lawfully  and  successfully.  He  wins  the 
prize.9 

These  athletic  metaphors  must  have  aroused  all  the  pre- 
judices of  some  of  the  Jews,  but  Paul  does  not  hesitate  to 
use  them  on  that  account.  Like  his  Master,  he  seemed  to 
take  some  delight  in  saying  and  doing  some  things  which 
shocked  the  ultra  good  people  of  his  generation.  Paul  may 
have  gone  to  the  theater !  He  likens  the  transitoriness  of 
this  world's  goods  to  the  shifting  scenes  of  the  stage,  and 
he  compares  his  own  life  to  a  theater  play  with  angels  and 
men  looking  on.1"     Such  figures  suggest  some  acquaintance 


8  Rom.  7.  23;  13.  12;  2  Cor.  2.  14-16;  6.  7;  10.  3-6;  Eph.  6.  10-17; 
Phil.  4.  7;  Col.  2.  15;  1  Thess.  5.  5-8;  2  Tim.  2.  3,  4. 

»  Acts  13.  25;  20.  24;  Rom.  9.  15,  16;  1  Cor.  4.  9;  9.  24-27;  Cal.  2.  2; 
5.  2;  Phil.  3.  12-14,  Iu;  Col.  4.  12;  1  Thess.  2.  2;  2  Thess.  3.  1;  1  Tim. 
4.  7,  8;  6.  12;  2  Tim.  2.  5;  4.  7,  8. 

10  I  Cor.  4.  9;  7.  31. 


80  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

with  the  Greek  theater  and  some  appreciation  of  its  micro- 
cosmic  character.  The  buying  and  selling  of  the  market 
place,  the  transactions  of  the  law  courts,  the  conditions  and 
experiences  of  the  slave  trade,  all  the  bustle  of  the  city 
streets  are  reflected  in  the  epistles  of  Paul.11 

Dean  Howson  wrote  a  volume  on  The  Metaphors  of 
Saint  Paul,  in  which  he  says  that  "his  metaphors  are  usu- 
ally drawn,  not  from  the  operations  and  phenomena  of  the 
natural  world,  but  from  the  activities  and  the  outward  mani- 
festations of  human  life,"  and  he  compares  Paul  and  James 
as  follows,  "The  vapor,  the  wind,  the  fountain,  beasts  and 
birds  and  serpents,  the  flower  of  the  grass,  the  waves  of  the 
sea,  the  early  and  the  latter  rain,  the  sun  risen  with  a  burn- 
ing heat — these  are  like  the  figures  of  the  ancient  prophets, 
and  there  is  more  imagery  of  this  kind  in  the  one  short 
epistle  of  James  than  in  all  the  speeches  and  letters  of  Paul 
put  together."  12 

Paul  makes  one  reference  to  rain  from  heaven  and  fruit- 
ful seasons,13  and  he  says  something  in  one  place  about 
the  sowing  of  seed  as  a  bare  grain  to  which  God  giveth 
another  body,  and  in  the  same  connection  about  the  sun 
and  moon  and  the  stars  differing  in  glory;14  but  aside  from 
two  or  three  incidental  references  of  this  sort  he  ignores  all 
natural  phenomena  and  confines  himself  to  the  products 
of  civilization  for  the  material  from  which  his  figures  shall 
be  drawn.  The  only  time  he  attempts  an  elaborate  illustra- 
tion from  nature  he  cites  an  artificial  process  which  is  the 
exact  opposite  of  the  one  commonly  practiced  and  talks 
about  grafting  a  wild  olive  into  a  fruitful  branch!  He 
purposely  perverted  the  usual  process  in  order  to  make  his 
figure  more  striking.15 


11  Rom.  13.  8;  Eph.  5.  16;  Rom.  I.  14;  2.  26;  4.  3,  4,  5,  6,  9,  II,  22, 
24;  2  Cor.  5.  19;  12.  6;  2  Tim.  4.  16;  Rom.  6.  16-23. 

12  Howson,  The  Metaphors  of  Saint  Paul,  p.  131. 
"Acts  14.  17. 

14  1  Cor.  15.  37-41.  I6  Rom.  11.  17-24. 


THE  EPISTLES  81 

In  the  Gospels  we  are  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Galikean 
hills,  filled  with  the  scent  of  the  flowers  and  the  singing  of 
the  birds.  In  the  Pauline  epistles  we  are  in  the  synagogues 
and  the  streets,  and  soldiers  and  slaves  have  taken  the  place 
of  the  bird  songs  and  the  field  blossoms.  Paul  was  almost, 
if  not  wholly,  blind  to  natural  beauties.  He  had  a  genius  of 
spiritual  insight  but  he  had  no  eye  for  such  things.  It  was 
better  to  be  blind  on  this  side  of  his  nature  than  on  the 
other. 

Huxley  asked  Professor  Haughton  why  he  believed  cer- 
tain things  which  Pluxley  professed  to  be  unable  to  believe. 
"May  I  speak  frankly?"  said  Haughton.  "Certainly,"  said 
Huxley.  "Then,"  said  his  friend,  "I  do  not  know  how  it  is, 
except  that  you  are  color-blind."  Huxley  was  much 
impressed  with  that  answer.  He  said :  "Well,  it  may  be  so. 
Of  course,  if  I  were  color-blind,  I  should  not  know  it 
myself."  Darwin  records  how  in  the  absorption  in  the 
pursuit  of  purely  physical  science  the  spiritual  and  artistic 
faculties  of  his  soul  gradually  atrophied  and  died.  He 
says:  "Disbelief  crept  over  me  at  a  very  slow  rate,  but  was 
at  last  complete.  ...  It  may  be  truly  said  that  I  am  like 
a  man  who  has  become  color-blind;  and  the  universal  belief 
by  men  of  the  existence  of  redness  makes  my  present  loss 
of  perception  of  not  the  least  value  as  evidence." 

Absorption  in  scientific  pursuits  had  made  these  men  blind 
on  the  spiritual  side  of  their  natures,  while  Paul's  absorp- 
tion in  spiritual  things  made  him  blind  or  kept  him  blind 
to  all  the  aesthetic  values  of  nature  and  art.  In  the  midst  of 
a  world  full  of  natural  beauties  Paul's  spirit  was  untouched 
by  them  and  his  heart  was  unmoved.  In  the  midst  of  a  city 
full  of  the  finest  statuary  ever  produced  Paul's  soul  was 
stirred  within  him,  but  it  was  stirred  with  indignation  alone. 
To  him  it  was  only  a  city  given  over  to  idolatry. 

It  is  a  pity  that  all  great  men  cannot  have  all  the  great 
qualities,  but  it  seems  to  be  true  that  greatness  has  its  glar- 
ing deficiency  as  well  as  its  patent  power  in  most  cases. 


82  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Jesus  was  as  spiritually-minded  as  Paul,  and  he  was  a  lover 
of  nature  as  well.  In  that  respect  Paul  was  not  like  his 
Lord.  Whether  Paul  was  responsible  for  this  lack  in  his 
make-up  we  never  may  know.  He  may  have  been  born 
without  aesthetic  appreciations,  or  as  in  the  case  of  Darwin, 
his  loss  of  them  may  have  been  self-induced ;  but  we  recog- 
nize this  disregard  of  nature  as  a  real  deficiency  in  both  the 
character  and  the  style  of  Paul. 

2.  Paul's  Disregard  of  Rules.  The  Pauline  epistles  were 
not  written  as  school  compositions.  Some  were  dashed  off 
in  a  great  hurry,  written  at  white  heat,  composed  under 
the  stress  of  great  excitement ;  and  they  probably  were  dis- 
patched without  any  careful  correction.  Some  are  letters 
to  particular  friends  and  have  no  more  evidence  of  pains- 
taking formulation  than  any  of  our  friendly  letters  to-day 
are  apt  to  have.  Others  are  more  formal  in  character  and 
are  addressed  to  great  churches,  but  even  in  these  Paul  is 
no  pedagogue  and  no  pedant.  He  seems  comparatively  care- 
less as  to  the  form  of  his  sentences  as  long  as  he  thinks  he 
is  able  to  make  his  thought  clear.  It  may  seem  surprising 
to  some  people  that  there  should  be  any  bad  grammar  or 
any  bad  taste  in  the  New  Testament,  and  for  the  most  part 
it  is  concealed  in  our  English  translations  so  that  English 
readers  never  may  suspect  it;  but  to  us  it  is  an  added  evi- 
dence of  the  genuineness  of  these  Pauline  epistles  that 
the  impetuosity  of  the  fiery  little  apostle  is  apparent  in  their 
intensity  of  tone  and  their  disjointed  structure.  We  see 
him  as  we  read  them.  They  represent  him  as  he  really  was. 
We  call  attention  to  some  of  the  facts  in  the  case. 

( i )  Coarseness.  There  are  a  few  expressions  in  these 
epistles  which  never  were  intended  for  polite  ears.  They 
seem  a  little  harsh  to  these  milder-mannered  times,  (a) 
We  have  noticed  that  phrase  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
which  scarcely  is  fit  to  be  read  in  any  public  assembly  to-day, 
except  as  it  may  be  paraphrased  into  a  more  dubiously 
respectable   English  rendering — "I  would  that  they    .    .    . 


THE  EPISTLES  83 

would  go  beyond  circumcision."  16  Paul's  chronic  intensity 
of  feeling  led  him  to  the  most  extravagant  expression  of  it 
upon  occasion.  He  always  was  honest,  but  the  case  seemed 
to  him  a  little  more  extreme  than  it  would  have  seemed  to 
a  more  phlegmatic  man.  (b)  Such  a  man  might  have  given 
up  all  things  for  Christ  even  as  Paul  did,  but  he  would 
not  have  been  likely  to  say  of  them  as  Paul  did,  "I  suffered 
the  loss  of  all  things,  and  do  count  them  but  dung,  that 
I  may  gain  Christ."  ir 

(c)  Other  men  might  have  been  treated  badly,  and  they 
might  have  felt  the  injustice  of  it  even  as  Paul  did,  and  yet 
they  would  not  have  thought  of  putting  it  as  strongly  as 
Paul  does  when  he  says,  "We  are  made  as  the  filth  of  the 
world,  the  offscouring  of  all  things,  even  until  now."  1S 
(d)  When  Paul  is  praising  the  Galatians  for  their  treatment 
of  him  during  his  disability  he  is  not  content  to  say,  "Ye 
did  not  show  me  the  least  expression  of  contempt,"  but  he 
makes  his  statement  concrete  and  as  forcible  as  possible, 
and  says,  "Ye  did  not  spit  out  at  me."  19  All  the  vigor  of 
a  virile  personality  is  apparent  in  these  phrases.  Paul  is 
stirred  to  the  depths  by  opposition.  He  feels  intensely  all 
kindness  and  all  calumny.  He  is  not  writing  calmly  for 
the  most  part.  He  is  a  volcano  in  eruption.  These  lines  are 
like  streams  of  lava  flowing  down  the  mountainside.  They 
scorch  and  burn.  They  have  no  care  for  green  grass  or 
the  singing  of  birds.  The  old  prophet  had  said  something 
about  substituting  beauty  for  ashes.  A  volcano  does  just 
the  opposite  thing.  Sometimes  Paul  was  more  like  a  volcano 
in  action  than  a  poet  singing  sweet  pastorals. 

(2)  Mixed  Metaphors.  Paul  has  some  wonderfully  mixed 
metaphors,  (a)  He  writes  to  the  Corinthians:  "We  know 
that  if  the  earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  be  dissolved, 
we  have  a  building  from  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens.     For  verily  in  this  we  groan,  long- 

18  Gal.  5.  12.  18  I  Cor.  4.  13. 

17  Phil.  3.  8.  19  Gal.  4.  14. 


84  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ing  to  be  clothed  upon  with  our  habitation  which  is  from 
heaven:  if  so  be  that  being  clothed  we  shall  not  be  found 
naked."  20  Who  ever  longed  to  be  clothed  upon  with  a 
house  to  cover  his  nakedness  ?  A  man's  raiment  and  a  man's 
residence  seem  to  be  strangely  confused  here,  (b)  In  the 
same  epistle  we  read,  "Ye  are  our  epistle,  written  in  our 
hearts,  known  and  read  of  all  men;  being  made  manifest 
that  ye  are  an  epistle  of  Christ,  ministered  by  us,  written 
not  with  ink,  but  with  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God ;  not 
in  tables  of  stone,  but  in  tables  that  are  hearts  of  flesh."  21 
Here  the  Corinthians  are,  first,  Paul's  epistle  and  then 
Christ's  epistle.  The  epistles  are  written  first  on  the 
hearts  of  Paul  and  his  companions  and  then  written  on 
the  hearts  of  the  Corinthians  to  whom  he  writes.  The 
metaphor  is  mixed  but  the  meaning  is  clear  to  most 
minds,  (c)  A  little  farther  on  in  the  same  epistle  there 
seems  to  be  a  like  confusion  of  thought.  The  veil  is  repre- 
sented as  covering  the  face  of  Moses  and  then  the  same  veil 
is  said  to  be  covering  the  hearts  of  the  children  of  Israel.22 
(d)  One  of  the  best  examples  of  Paul's  mixed  metaphors 
is  found  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  where  he  exhorts 
them,  "As  therefore  ye  received  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord,  so 
walk  in  him,  rooted  and  builded  up  in  him,  and  established 
in  your  faith."  2;?  Walk,  rooted  like  a  tree,  and  built  up 
like  a  house,  and  at  the  same  time  firmly  fixed  in  one  place ! 
(3)  Unfinished  Sentences.  Paul  sometimes  begins  a 
sentence  and  never  finishes  it.  For  example:  (a)  "But 
if  God,  willing  to  show  his  wrath,  and  to  make  his  power 
known,  endured  with  much  long-suffering  vessels  of  wrath 
fitted  unto  destruction :  in  order  that  he  might  make  known 
the  riches  of  his  glory  upon  vessels  of  mercy,  which  he 
afore  prepared  unto  glory,  us  whom  he  also  called,  not  only 
from  the  Jews,  but  also  from  the  Gentiles"  24 — what  ?    Paul 

20  2  Cor.  5.  1-3.  23  Col.  2.  6,  7. 

21  2  Cor.  3.  2,  3.  M  Rom.  9.  22-24. 

22  2  Cor.  3.  13-16. 


THE  EPISTLES  85 

never  ends  this  conditional  sentence,  and  he  never  introduces 
any  principal  sentence  for  it  anywhere  in  the  immediate 
context.  He  probably  forgot  all  about  it  as  he  went  on 
with  his  discussion,  (b)  Strangely  enough  the  closing  sen- 
tence in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  as  it  stands  in  our  Greek 
texts  is  an  incomplete  one.  There  is  more  of  a  complete 
system  of  theology  in  this  epistle  than  in  any  other,  but  the 
closing  doxology  is  itself  incomplete.  "Now  to  him  that  is 
able  to  establish  you  according  to  my  gospel  and  the  preach- 
ing of  Jesus  Christ,  according  to  the  revelation  of  the 
mystery  which  hath  been  kept  in  silence  through  times 
eternal,  but  now  is  manifested,  and  by  the  scriptures  of  the 
prophets,  according  to  the  commandment  of  the  eternal 
God,  is  made  known  unto  all  the  nations  unto  obedience  of 
faith :  to  the  only  wise  God,  through  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom 
be  the  glory  for  ever"25 — what?  Paul  does  not  say.  He 
adds  only  an  "Amen."  Did  he  intend  to  say,  "to  God  we 
dedicate  this  epistle,"  or  "to  God  we  pray  for  your  continu- 
ous salvation"  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  We  know  only  that  Paul 
forgot  to  put  in  any  principal  sentence,  and  left  his  preposi- 
tional phrase  hanging  in  the  air. 

(4)  Unfinished  Enumerations.  Paul  sometimes  begins 
an  enumeration  with  a  "firstly"  and  then  forgets  to  add  any 
"secondly,"  or  to  carry  it  any  farther,  (a)  He  begins  his 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  "First,  I  thank  my  God  through 
Jesus  Christ  for  you  all."  26  He  never  says,  "Second,  I" 
do  anything  else,  (b)  In  the  third  chapter  of  this  epistle 
he  asks,  "What  advantage  then  hath  the  Jew?"  and  he 
answers,  "Much  every  way:  first  of  all,  that  they  were 
intrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God."  27  He  evidently  intended 
to  make  a  list  of  the  advantages  of  the  Jews,  but  he  became 
interested  in  other  things  and  never  put  down  a  "second"  or 
"third."     He  does  not  get  back  to  any  such  list  until  he 

25  Rom.  16  25-27. 

26  Rom.  1.  8. 

27  Rom.  3.  1,  2. 


86  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

reaches  the  ninth  chapter  when  he  says  of  his  kinsmen 
according  to  the  flesh,  "who  are  Israelites;  whose  is  the 
adoption,  and  the  glory,  and  the  covenants,  and  the  giving 
of  the  law  and  the  service  of  God,  and  the  promises ;  whose 
are  the  fathers,  and  of  whom  is  Christ."  2S  These  things 
may  have  been  in  Paul's  mind  when  he  wrote  that  "first  of 
all"  in  the  third  chapter,  and  he  may  have  intended  to  name 
them  in  order  at  that  place ;  but  his  argument  ran  away  with 
him  and  he  never  went  on  with  the  enumeration  there  begun. 
(5)  Sidetracking.  It  is  Paul's  preference  to  follow  his 
thought  in  his  dictation  without  much  regard  to  his  logic 
or  the  sentence  formation.  That  is  one  reason  why  these 
epistles  are  so  full  of  vitality.  They  represent  Paul's 
thought  just  as  it  was  born  within  him.  It  has  not  been 
ironed  out  into  smoothness.  It  has  not  been  put  into  any 
strait-jacket.  It  has  all  the  irregularity  and  spontaneity  of 
Paul's  natural  speech.  It  has  been  said  that  it  is  Paul's  habit 
to  "go  off  at  a  word."  We  would  prefer  to  say  that  his 
active  mind  saw  many  implications  at  any  point  in  his  discus- 
sion, and  he  frequently  saw  fit  to  follow  up  some  of  these, 
even  though  his  sentence  or  his  paragraph  thus  became  very 
long  and  unwieldy. 

(a)  Take  that  first  sentence  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
as  an  example.  Paul  begins  with  his  name  and  his  titles  in 
the  ordinary  form ;  but  he  does  not  stop  there.  He  says  that 
he  is  an  apostle,  separated  unto  the  gospel  of  God.  At  that 
mention  of  the  gospel  he  "goes  off"  to  explain  what  it  is. 
It  was  promised  "afore  through  the  prophets  in  the  holy 
scriptures,"  and  it  is  concerning  his  Son.  At  that  mention 
of  the  Son  he  "goes  off"  to  explain  him,  in  the  assertion 
of  his  true  humanity  and  his  proven  deity.  Then  he  comes 
back  to  his  apostleship  as  received  through  his  Christ.29 

(b)  In  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
Paul   asserts   that  death  and   sin   entered   into   the   world 


28  Rom.  9.  4,  5. 

29  Rom.  1.  1-7. 


THE  EPISTLES  87 

through  one  man,  and  he  intended  to  say  that  in  the  same 
way  through  one  man  salvation  and  life  had  been  brought 
to  the  race ;  but  in  the  middle  of  that  sentence  he  "goes  off" 
to  explain  something  of  the  relation  of  death  to  sin,  and 
then  he  falls  to  contrasting  Adam  and  Christ,  and  only  after 
a  long  parenthesis  does  he  return  to  the  parallel  with  which 
he  began.30 

Enough  has  been  said  to  make  it  clear  that  Paul's  style 
is  not  that  of  a  pedantic  precisian.  It  is  as  rapid,  vehement, 
and  intense  as  himself.  It  is  as  heedless  of  proprieties  and 
careless  of  rules  as  any  reformer  or  revolutionary  ever 
would  be  in  his  conduct. 

(6)  Coined  Words.  Paul  coins  new  words  when  he  needs 
them,  and  he  does  not  care  how  atrocious  they  may  be  if 
they  seem  to  him  to  express  his  meaning  adequately. 

(a)  For  example,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  we  come 
upon  the  three  compound  words  ovvkX7]q6vo}iu  kol  avvawfia 
Kal  ovv[ietox<i,  which  we  translate  "fellow-heirs,  and  fel- 
low-members of  the  body,  and  fellow-partakers."  31  Jerome 
translated  them  in  the  Vulgate,  "cohccrcdcs  et  concorporalcs 
et  comparticipes,"  and  then  defended  these  strange  Latin 
forms  by  saying:  "I  know  that  in  Latin  it  makes  an  ugly 
sentence.  But  because  it  so  stands  in  the  Greek,  and  be- 
cause every  word  and  syllable  and  stroke  and  point  in  the 
Divine  Scriptures  is  full  of  meaning,  I  prefer  the  risks  of 
verbal  malformation  to  the  risk  of  missing  the  sense."  It 
sounds  pious  enough  in  Jerome ;  but  probably  he  was  sug- 
gesting merely  that  the  sufficient  excuse  for  the  verbal  mal- 
formations in  the  Latin  was  to  be  found  in  the  verbal  mal- 
formations of  the  Greek.  If  Paul  could  manufacture  such 
uncouth  compounds  and  ugly  sentences  Jerome  could  follow 
his  illustrious  example. 

No  one  of  these  words  occurs  in  classical  Greek.  No 
classical  author  would  have  thought  of  coining  them.     A 

30  Rom.  5.  12-18. 

31  Eph.  3.  6. 


88  PAUL  AND  I  IIS  EPISTLES 

classicist  would  have  regarded  them  as  crass  barbarisms. 
Why  does  the  apostle  Paul  invent  such  crudities?  We 
think  that  he  feels  compelled  by  the  exigencies  of  the  case. 
His  message  is  more  important  than  the  rules  of  rhetoric. 
He  desires  at  this  point  to  make  the  unity  of  all  the  nations 
in  the  faith  as  unmistakably  clear  as  human  language  can 
do  it.  If  verbal  compounds  will  suggest  this  unity,  he  will 
go  all  lengths  in  making  them.  He  will  break  any  rule,  he 
will  burst  any  bonds,  he  will  disregard  any  propriety  which 
hinders  the  free  and  full  expression  of  the  divine  grace  in 
Christ. 

(b)  In  the  next  sentence  we  have  Paul's  statement,  "Unto 
me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all  saints,  was  this  grace 
given." 32  The  word  eAa^cn-orepoj,  "less  than  the  least" 
is  a  still  worse  verbal  malformation.  Prebendary  Huxtable 
calls  it  "an  unparalleled  barbarism  of  grammatical  inflex- 
ion," 33  and  he  goes  on  to  say  very  rightly  that  our  English 
versions  have  smoothed  the  extreme  ruggedness  of  the  word 
out  of  sight  with  their  rendering.  It  is  a  comparative 
formed  on  a  superlative — "I  am  the  least er  of  all  the  saints." 
It  is  the  comparative  of  a  superlative — "I  am  the  more  least 
of  all  the  saints."  It  is  a  grammatical  impossibility;  it  is  a 
literal  absurdity.  If  anyone  is  least,  there  can  be  no  one 
more  least  than  he.  What  is  least  can  have  nothing  less 
than  itself.  Did  Paul  mean  to  say:  "I  am  unspeakably  un- 
worthy of  this  high  honor  which  has  been  thrust  upon  me. 
I  am  inexpressibly  insignificant  in  myself  and  in  comparison 
with  my  office.  It  is  not  within  the  power  of  human  lan- 
guage as  now  constructed  to  set  forth  the  state  of  the  case. 
I  feel  as  if  I  must  push  beyond  the  bounds  of  legitimate 
rhetoric  before  I  reach  a  depth  of  humility  proper  to  my 
position  in  the  church"  ? 

Here,  then,  are  the  facts  of  the  case.  Paul's  style  is 
full    of    awkward     anacoloutha,     irregular    constructions, 

32  Eph.  3.  8. 

83  Expositor,  II,  vol.  iii,  p.  273. 


THE  EPISTLES  89 

strange  forms,  and  all  the  phenomena  characteristic  of  a 
nervous  and  highly  excitable  author  who  is  more  intent  upon 
the  truth  of  his  matter  than  upon  the  formal  beauty  of  its 
expression.  The  reasons  for  the  style  are  to  be  found  in 
the  nature  of  the  man. 

(1)  The  exuberance  of  Paul's  thought  accounts  for  much. 
He  had  too  much  to  say  and  too  little  time  in  which  to  say 
it  or  too  little  space  in  which  to  put  it.  His  thoughts  hurry 
each  other,  jostle  each  other,  ride  each  other  down  some- 
times. They  do  not  march  in  orderly  procession.  They 
run  and  leap  like  rival  contestants  in  Olympic  games,  like 
soldiers  fighting  their  way  through  a  narrow  pass.  It  is 
not  strange  that  there  should  be  some  confusion  because 
of  the  profusion  of  ideas  struggling  for  a  place  on  the 
written  page.  It  is  strange  how  clearly  the  thought  pro- 
gresses, despite  all  hindrances,  by  sheer  force  of  momentum. 
"Paul  has  the  style  of  genius  if  he  has  not  the  genius  of 
style."  34 

(2)  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  Paul  constantly 
betrays  a  degree  of  carelessness  as  to  the  form  of  his  com- 
position which  shows  how  lightly  he  must  have  regarded  it. 
We  cannot  imagine  the  apostle  Paul  pausing  to  polish  a 
period !  That  simply  would  be  impossible  for  him.  He 
never  was  ambitious  to  pose  as  a  model  of  style.  There 
were  other  things  which  seemed  so  much  more  important  to 
him.  There  are  beautiful  things  in  Paul's  writings,  but  they 
are  spontaneously  so,  not  made  so  by  study.  Paul's  genius 
made  him  say  great  things.  Sometimes  the  very  elevation 
of  his  soul  made  him  eloquent  and  elegant.  He  has  written 
some  of  the  greatest  passages  in  the  world's  literature.  He 
could  have  ranked  high  as  a  literary  master  if  he  had  chosen 
to  do  so.  Pie  had  a  higher  mission.  His  writing  was  inci- 
dental to  his  missionary  career.  It  held  a  very  subordinate 
place  in  his  thought.    His  interest  was  in  the  matter  of  his 


34  Grimm  suggested  that  this  was  true  of  Montesquieu. 


9o  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

message  and  not  in  the  manner  of  its  presentation.  It  was 
the  substance  of  the  gospel  which  absorbed  him,  and  he  was 
comparatively  careless  as  to  its  form. 

(3)  It  is  worth  remembering  in  this  connection  that  Paul 
was  a  pioneer  in  this  field.  The  Pauline  epistles  are  the 
earliest  products  of  Christian  literature.  The  Gospels  and 
the  book  of  Acts  and  the  other  New  Testament  epistles  and 
the  Apocalypse  are  all  later  in  time.  Paul  blazed  the  path 
into  a  new  intellectual  realm.  He  made  the  road-bed  for 
new  ideas.  His  style  is  rough  and  rugged  like  that  of  a 
frontiersman.  It  is  not  polished  like  that  of  a  palace 
courtier.  Paul  was  a  miner  for  new  truth.  His  thoughts 
come  out  like  nuggets  of  precious  gold.  It  is  original  ore 
which  we  find  in  these  epistles.  The  theologians  of  the 
succeeding  centuries  have  minted  this  ore  into  current  coin. 
Paul  gave  it  to  us  in  lumps  and  chunks. 

(4)  It  always  is  possible  too  that  any  individual  gram- 
matical blunder  may  be  the  fault  of  the  amanuensis  and  not 
of  the  author.  Paul  dictated  his  letters,  and  if  he  never 
took  the  trouble  to  revise  them,  some  mistakes  of  that  sort 
would  be  inevitable.  We  may  be  sure  that  Paul  knew  how 
to  write  better  Greek  than  he  sometimes  did  write.  He 
was  capable  of  correctness  if  he  had  thought  it  worth  while. 
He  knew  the  rules  but  he  deliberately  disregarded  them,  or, 
rather,  he  deliberately  decided  not  to  bother  himself  about 
them  so  long  as  he  made  his  meaning  clear  and  his  message 
effective.  Paul  had  been  well  trained  both  in  the  rules  of 
Greek  rhetoric  and  in  the  methods  of  the  Jewish  rabbis; 
but  he  was  too  original  and  too  unrestrained  and  irrepres- 
sible to  be  unduly  shackled  by  these  things. 

"If  there  had  been  reviewers  in  the  days  of  Paul,  they 
might  have  passed  upon  him  censures  without  end.  How 
careless  are  those  unfinished  sentences!  What  ungraceful 
and  tedious  repetitions  of  the  same  word  again  and  again ! 
What  extraordinary  confusions  of  metaphors !  What  a  bar- 
barous  cilicism !      What   a    vulgar   expression !      What   an 


THE  EPISTLES  91 

obscure  sentence !  What  a  violent  paradox !  What  a  bitter 
taunt!  If  some  friendly  Atticist  or  Tarsian  professor  had 
got  hold  of  one  of  the  epistles  to  prepare  it  for  publication, 
he  would  have  made  great  havoc  of  it.  We  should  have  had 
whole  sentences  underscored,  and  softened  down,  and 
squared,  and  elaborated ;  graceful  variations  of  the  same 
term ;  phrases  suited  to  the  politest  society ;  all  provincialisms 
and  irregularities  removed."  35  Then  they  would  have  been 
anything  but  the  epistles  of  Paul.  They  would  have  been 
classically  correct,  but  they  would  have  lost  their  character- 
istic features.  Their  individuality  would  have  disappeared 
and  with  it  most  of  their  power  over  the  affections  and  the 
other  emotions. 

"A  style  may  be  faulty,  may  be  liable  to  a  thousand  criti- 
cisms, may  be  too  rough  or  too  ornate,  or  too  indifferent  to 
rhythm,  or  too  neglectful  of  grammar,  and  yet  may  be 
incomparably  the  best  style  which  a  particular  man  could 
have  used,  because  it  sprang  naturally  from  his  character 
and  education,  and  is  therefore  most  exactly  expressive  of 
himself — of  himself  as  the  complex  total  result  of  his  orig- 
inal temperament,  and  of  the  modifications  which  it  has 
undergone  from  the  myriads  of  influences  for  which  he  has 
shown  the  greatest  affinity."  36 

3.  Paul  the  Hellenist.  There  are  evidences  of  Greek 
culture  in  Paul's  style. 

(1)  Use  of  Greek  Figures  of  Rhetoric.  "The  figures  of 
Greek  rhetoric  occur  in  Paul  far  more  frequently  and  in  a 
far  more  specific  way  than  they  do  in  the  other  writers  of 
the  New  Testament." 37  Farrar  gives  fifty  examples  of 
more  than  thirty  figures  of  Greek  rhetoric  used  by  Paul, 
and  his  conclusion  is  "that  it  is  far  from  improbable  that, 
as  a  boy  in  Tarsus,  he  had  attended  some  elementary  class 
in  rhetoric,  which,  indeed,  may  have  been  only  a  part  of  his 
education  in  the  grammatical  knowledge  of  the  Greek  lan- 

35  Farrar,  in  Expositor,  I,  vol.  x,  pp.  5,  6. 
38  Idem,  p.  4.  37  Idem,  p.  26. 


92  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

guage."  37  All  of  which  would  go  to  show  that  Paul,  when 
writing  to  Greeks,  preferred  to  put  his  thought  into  forms 
familiar  to  them  and  therefore  more  likely  to  be  acceptable 
to  them. 

We  suggest  some  seven  examples  out  of  what  might  be 
made  a  much  longer  list  of  these  common  Greek  figures  of 
rhetoric : 

(a)  Enumerations,  as  in  the  attributes  ascribed  to  Chris- 
tian love,38  and  in  the  many  methods  mentioned  by  which 
Paul  and  the  other  ambassadors  for  Christ  commended  them- 
selves as  the  ministers  of  God,39  and  in  the  evidences 
adduced  to  prove  Paul's  superiority  over  his  adversaries,40 
and  in  the  honor  roll  of  those  things  upon  which  Paul  would 
have  his  converts  meditate.41 

(b)  Antitheses,  as  in  the  paradoxical  statement,  "Him  who 
knew  no  sin  he  made  to  be  sin  on  our  behalf ;  that  we 
might  become  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him,"42  and  in 
the  strange  contradictions  of  Paul's  experience,  "pressed  on 
every  side,  yet  not  straitened ;  perplexed,  yet  not  unto 
despair ;  pursued,  yet  not  forsaken ;  smitten  down,  yet  not 
destroyed ;  always  bearing  about  in  the  body  the  dying  of 
Jesus,  that  the  life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  manifested  in  our 
body."  43 

(c)  Climaxes,  as  in  the  whole  of  that  gem  of  Pauline  com- 
positions, the  description  of  the  superiority,  the  beauty,  and 
the  eternity  of  Christian  love,44  or  in  the  enumeration  of  the 
results  of  the  godly  sorrow  of  the  Corinthians,  "what 
earnest  care  it  wrought  in  you,  yea  what  clearing  of  your- 
selves, yea  what  indignation,  yea  what  fear,  yea  what  long- 
ing, yea  what  zeal,  yea  what  avenging!"  45 

(d)  Rapid  interrogations,  such  as,  "What  then  shall  we 


37  Farrar,  in  Expositor,  I,  vol.  x,  p.  26. 

38  1  Cor.  13.  4-8.  42  2  Cor.  5.  21. 

39  2  Cor.  6.  4-10.  43  2  Cor.  4.  8-10. 

40  2  Cor.  11.  22-29.  **  1  Cor.  13. 

«  Phil.  4.  8.  «2  Cor.  7.1 1. 


THE  EPISTLES  93 

say  to  these  things?  If  God  is  for  us,  who  is  against  us? 
He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for 
us  all,  how  shall  he  not  also  with  him  freely  give  us  all 
things?  Who  shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's 
elect?  Shall  God  that  justifieth?  Who  is  he  that  con- 
demneth?     Shall  Christ  Jesus  that  died?"46 

(e)  Multiplication  of  synonyms,  as  in  the  sarcastic  de- 
lineation of  the  self-satisfaction  of  the  Jew,  "Thou  bearest 
the  name  of  a  Jew,  and  restest  upon  the  law,  and  gloriest 
in  God,  and  knowest  his  will,  and  approvest  the  things  that 
are  excellent,  being  instructed  out  of  the  law,  and  art  confi- 
dent that  thou  thyself  art  a  guide  of  the  blind,  a  light 
of  them  that  are  in  darkness,  a  corrector  of  the  foolish, 
a  teacher  of  babes,  having  in  the  law  the  form  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  the  truth,"  47  followed  by  that  rapid  fire  of 
interrogations  which  we  noticed  under  the  last  head: 
"Thou  therefore  that  teachest  another,  teachest  thou  not 
thyself?  thou  that  preachest  a  man  should  not  steal,  dost 
thou  steal?  thou  that  sayest  a  man  should  not  commit 
adultery,  dost  thou  commit  adultery?  thou  that  abhorrest 
idols,  dost  thou  rob  temples?  thou  who  gloriest  in  the  law, 
through  thy  transgression  of  the  law  dishonorest  thou 
God?"48  These  two,  the  multiplication  of  synonyms  and 
the  rapid  interrogation,  are  united  again  in  that  series  of 
questions  addressed  to  the  Corinthians,  "What  fellowship 
have  righteousness  and  iniquity?  or  what  communion  hath 
light  with  darkness?  And  what  concord  hath  Christ  with 
Belial?  or  what  portion  hath  a  believer  with  an  unbe- 
liever? And  what  agreement  hath  a  temple  of  God  with 
idols?"49 

(/)  Oxymora.  The  oxymoron  is  a  saying  which  seems  on 
the  surface  of  it  to  be  utterly  absurd  while  at  the  same 
time  it  is  a  setting  forth  of  a  profound  truth.  Paul  has 
many  examples  of  the  use  of  this  form  of  speech.     "The 

46  Rom.  8.  31-34.  ffl  Rom.  2.  21-23. 

47  Rom.  2.  17-20.  49  2  Cor.  6.  14-16. 


94  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

invisible  things  of  him  .  .  .  are  clearly  seen,"  50  "in  haste 
not  sluggish," 51  "their  deep  poverty  abounded  unto  the 
riches  of  their  liberality,"  52  "when  I  am  weak,  then  am  I 
strong,"  53  "living  she  has  died,"  54  "being  slain,  and  behold 
we  live,"  55  "in  much  affliction  with  joy,"  56  "to  be  ambitious 
to  be  quiet,"  57  and  the  whole  of  the  description  of  the  armor 
of  God  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  including  the  sandals 
of  the  preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace.58 

(g)  Paronomasia.  This  is  the  Greek  word  for  our 
English  "pun."  It  is  a  play  on  words.  Paul's  use  of  it 
can  be  seen  only  in  the  Greek,  as  a  matter  of  course;  and 
sometimes  it  is  impossible  to  reproduce  the  effect  in  English. 
Examples  can  be  found  in  the  Pauline  epistles  where  the 
play  on  words  is  produced  by  the  change  of  one  or  two 
letters,  as  in  the  immediate  juxtaposition  of  two  such 
words  as  Txopvtia  and  novTjpia,  or  <pdovov  and  (povov, 59  or 
davvirovg  and  dovvderovg.  60  The  most  frequent  figure  of 
rhetoric  found  in  Paul's  writing  is  the  paronomasia  depend- 
ent upon  the  use  of  words  similar  in  sound  or  derivation 
but  different  in  meaning,  as  in  "ova  idoKqiaaav  .  .  .  ddoKifiov 
vovv,  they  refused  to  have  God  in  their  knowledge  and  so 
God  gave  them  over  to  a  refuse  mind,"  61  and  "where  in 
thou  judgest,  npivEtg,  another  thou  bringest  in  a  judgment 
against,  KaraKptven;,  thyself"  62  and  "I  say  to  every  man  that 
is  among  you  not  to  be  high-minded,  virepcppoveiv,  above  what 
he  ought  to  be  minded,  <f>povelv,  but  to  be  minded,  <pgovslv, 
to  be  soberminded,  OGHppovd v. "6S 

A  happy  reproduction  of  one  of  Paul's  puns  is  to  be 
found  in  our  version,  "using  the  world  as  not  abusing  it 


60  Rom.  I.  20.  B7  I  Thess.  4.  II. 
"Rom.  12.  11.  »Eph.  6.  13-17. 

61  2  Cor.  8.  2.  M  Rom.  1.  29. 
58  2  Cor.  12.  10.  «»  Rom.  I.  30. 
64  1  Tim.  5.  6.  eI  Rom.  1.  28. 
«  2  Cor.  6.  9.  K  Rom.  2.  1. 
»i  Thess.  1.  6.  "Rom.  12.  3. 


THE  EPISTLES  95 

(%pd)(ievoi  cog  u?)  KaraxpwfiEvoi)."  64  Another  is  suggested  in 
the  phrases,  "lovers  of  pleasure  more  than  lovers  of  God 
(<t>iXr)dovoi  .  .  .  cpiXodeoi)."  65  One  which  wholly  escapes 
the  reader  of  the  English  version  is  to  be  found  in  Paul's 
description  of  the  disorderly  idlers  in  Thessalonica  when 
he  says  of  them,  that  they  are  "not  busy,  but  busybodies 
(Li7]dt;v  tyya^ontvovg  akXa  TrepiepyaZontvovg) ."  66  Years  after- 
ward Paul  repeated  this  play  upon  words  in  warning 
Timothy  against  the  gossiping  women  of  Ephesus,  who 
are  "not  only  idle,  but  busy  in  the  female  school  of  idleness 
(pi)  fiovov  dgyai  dAAd  icai   .    .    .    Trepiepytu)."  67 

Paul  puns  upon  proper  names  sometimes.  In  the  familiar 
letter  to  Philemon  he  rings  the  changes  upon  the  name 
of  the  converted  slave,  Onesimus  or  "Profitable."  He  says, 
I  beseech  thee  for  "Profitable"  who  once  was  "unprofit- 
able" to  thee,  but  now  is  "profitable"  to  thee  and  to  me,  and 
later  he  adds,  "Yea,  brother,  I  would  that  thou  were  an 
Onesimus  to  me."  68  Possibly  the  phrase  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Philippians,  "true  yokefellow,"  may  represent  the  proper 
name  "Syzygus,"  and  then  Paul  would  be  playing  upon  his 
name  and  calling  him  "Yokefellow  by  name  and  yokefellow 
by  nature."  69  These  examples  may  be  sufficient  to  suggest 
that  either  in  early  life  or  in  later  years  Paul  had  made 
himself  acquainted  with  the  various  figures  of  the  Greek 
rhetoric,  and  that  they  are  more  frequent  in  his  use  than  in 
that  of  any  other  of  our  New  Testament  writers. 

(2)  Influence  of  Thucydides.  It  would  be  extremely 
interesting  if  we  could  find  some  one  writer  among  the 
Greeks  whose  style  had  influenced  the  style  of  Paul.  We 
never  would  think  of  instituting  such  a  search,  or  even  rais- 
ing such  a  question  in  the  case  of  most  of  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament;  but  Paul  is  a  Hellenist,  one  article  of 


Mi  Cor.  7.  31.  67  1  Tim.  5.  13. 

65  2  Tim.  3.  4.  «  Philem.  10,  20. 

66  2  Thess.  3.  11.  69  Phil.  4.  3. 


96  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

whose  creed  was,  "All  things  are  ours,"  whether  Jewish  or 
Greek,  and  it  will  be  worth  while  to  raise  this  inquiry  with 
him.  Strangely  enough  (or  shall  we  say  naturally  enough?), 
we  find  a  classical  writer  with  that  carelessness  of  literary 
polish  we  notice  in  Paul,  with  the  same  remarkable  elo- 
quence upon  occasion,  and  with  the  same  compressed  emo- 
tion, taxing  the  powers  of  the  language  to  express  it  and 
sometimes  with  volcanic  energy  breaking  over  all  the 
barriers  of  grammar  and  rhetoric  into  unrestrained  outflow. 

The  style  of  Thucydides  furnishes  an  astonishingly  close 
parallel  with  the  style  of  Paul.  C.  L.  Bauer  has  written  a 
book,  Philologia  Thucydideo-Paulina,  in  which  he  has  set 
forth  in  detail  this  remarkable  parallelism  in  figures  of 
speech  and  manner  of  expression.  Since  his  day  the  resem- 
blance of  style  between  these  two  men  has  been  quite  gen- 
erally acknowledged.  F.  C.  Baur  has  said  of  certain  pas- 
sages in  Paul's  writing,  that  they  "have  the  true  ring  of 
Thucydides,  not  only  in  expression  but  in  the  style  of 
thought.  The  genuine  dialectic  spirit  appears  in  both,  in 
the  love  of  antithesis  and  contrast,  rising  not  unfrequently 
to  paradox.  .  .  .  With  both  these  men  the  ties  of  natural 
particularism  give  way  before  the  generalizing  tendency  of 
their  thought,  and  cosmopolitanism  takes  the  place  of 
nationalism."  70 

This  likeness  of  style  usually  has  been  explained  by  psy- 
chological resemblances  in  the  two  men  and  by  something 
of  similarity  in  their  environment  rather  than  by  conscious 
imitation  on  the  part  of  Paul.  We  feel  sure  that  Paul  never 
plagiarized,  and  there  was  too  much  of  originality  in  the 
subject-matter  of  his  message  for  him  to  be  indebted  to  any- 
one else  for  the  substance  of  his  thought ;  and  yet,  in  his 
willingness  to  appropriate  the  good  in  everything,  he  may 
have  found  much  to  admire  in  the  compressed  energy  of 
Thucydides,  and  it  surely  is  probable  that  he  himself  would 


70  Baur,  Paul,  vol.  ii,  p.  281. 


THE  EPISTLES  97 

recognize  any  intellectual  and  psychological  affinity  between 
the  two  as  readily  and  as  surely  as  the  critics  of  our  own 
day.  If  "the  style  of  Paul  more  clearly  resembles  the  style 
of  Thucydides  than  that  of  any  other  great  writer  of 
antiquity,"  71  the  most  satisfactory  explanation  of  this  fact 
would  be  that  Paul  was  acquainted  with  and  impressed  by 
the  style  of  Thucydides  himself.  There  is  nothing  impos- 
sible or  improbable  in  the  supposition,  and  we  are  disposed 
to  believe  that  Paul  had  read  and  appreciated  and  studied 
Thucydides  and  so  had  come  to  approximate  and  reproduce 
the  Thucydidean  style. 

(3)  Influence  of  Demosthenes.  Possibly  Paul  may  have 
read  and  studied  other  Greek  authors  and  authorities.  Like 
all  the  first  evangelists  Paul  interpreted  his  commission  as 
that  of  an  oral  witness  to  the  truths  of  the  gospel.  An 
apostle  was  a  preacher,  not  an  author.  Primarily  Paul  was 
a  religious  orator.  For  years  he  found  no  leisure  for  writ- 
ing of  any  kind.  He  preached  for  fifteen  years  before  he 
wrote  anything,  as  far  as  we  know.  Thereafter  he  talked 
incessantly,  and  wrote  only  occasionally.  He  preached  thou- 
sands of  sermons  while  he  wrote  a  dozen  epistles.  We 
would  naturally  expect,  therefore,  that  the  style  of  these 
epistles  might  be  that  of  a  public  speaker,  and  that  wherever 
opportunity  afforded  they  might  take  upon  themselves  the 
character  of  orations,  with  the  same  direct  appeals,  the  same 
carefully  wrought  out  arguments,  and  the  same  climaxes  of 
thought  and  rhetoric  which  must  have  characterized  his  dis- 
courses. Examples  of  this  forensic  and  oratorical  handling 
of  his  material  will  occur  at  once  to  every  one  familiar  with 
his  writings. 

Would  Paul  be  likely  to  study  any  model  among  the  Greek 
orators  to  learn  from  him,  if  possible,  the  secrets  of  his 
persuasive  power  over  his  countrymen?  If  he  studied  any, 
would  he  not  be  likely  to  have  studied  the  greatest  among 


71  Farrar,  Life  and  Works  of  Saint  Paul,  p.  691. 


98  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

them — Demosthenes  ?  He  would  have  been  attracted  by  the 
moral  earnestness  of  the  great  Greek  master  of  oratory,  by 
his  dependence  upon  the  truth  rather  than  upon  any  mere 
rhetorical  artifices  or  arts,  by  the  fundamental  spirituality 
of  his  appeals,  and  by  their  direct  reference  to  the  con- 
sciences and  the  hearts  of  his  hearers.  On  this  plane  Paul 
would  feel  that  Demosthenes  was  at  one  with  himself.  The 
massiveness  of  reasoning,  the  pertinency  of  illustration,  the 
mastery  of  the  emotions  characteristic  of  the  great  Athenian 
would  appeal  to  Paul's  admiration ;  and  surely  no  writer  in 
the  New  Testament  has  made  so  near  an  approach  to 
Demosthenean  power  in  these  particulars  as  has  Paul.  It  is 
not  by  a  priori  judgment,  however,  that  we  may  come  to 
any  conclusion  upon  this  point.  It  is  only  by  a  detailed 
study  of  the  epistles  that  we  can  arrive  at  any  feeling  of 
certainty  in  the  matter. 

When  we  turn  to  these,  we  are  surprised  at  the  abundance 
of  evidence  which  throngs  in  upon  us.  We  find  (a)  the 
Greek  orator's  careful  attention  to  proofs  and  illustrations 
and  to  the  arrangement  of  them  in  the  construction  of  the 
argument  characteristic  also  of  the  writings  of  Paul.  We 
find  (b)  the  rhetorical  forms  which  were  favorites  with 
Demosthenes,  the  rhetorical  interrogation,  the  asseveration, 
the  introduction  of  objections  in  the  form  of  dialogue,  in 
constant  use  by  Paul.  We  find  (c)  the  Demosthenean  irony 
and  sarcasm  flashing  through  the  epistles  of  Paul.  We  find 
(d)  the  same  power  and  impressiveness  of  expression,  (e) 
the  same  fervor  of  appeal,  (/)  the  same  intensity  of  per- 
sonal conviction,  and  (g)  the  same  fidelity  to  the  highest 
endeavors  and  aims  in  both  Demosthenes  and  Paul.  If 
anyone  suggest  that  all  these  things  would  be  characteristic 
of  any  great  soul  on  fire  with  a  great  cause,  we  answer  that 
at  all  these  points  the  parallel  between  Paul  and  Demos- 
thenes is  closer  than  with  any  other  orator  of  ancient  times. 
We  are  convinced  that  the  parallel  is  with  Demosthenes 
himself   when    we   find    ( //  )    that   Paul   is   reproducing  the 


THE  EPISTLES  99 

phrases,  the  ideas,  and  even  the  construction  of  entire  sen- 
tences found  in  Demosthenes. 

These  parallelisms  have  been  collected  by  Kypke72  and 
by  Koster,73  and  are  shown  to  occur  in  every  group  of 
Paul's  epistles,  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest,  and  to  be  most 
frequent  in  the  larger  and  more  argumentative,  and  to  repre- 
sent just  such  use  as  we  would  expect  in  the  unconscious 
reminiscence  of  a  faithful  student  of  a  great  master  whose 
work  was  in  a  widely  different  field.  Koster  begins  his 
study  with  the  statement  that  "we  must  admit  the  proba- 
bility that  Paul  has  modeled  the  language  of  his  epistles, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  upon  the  orations  of  Demosthenes," 
and  after  minute  investigation  of  "the  numerous  parallel- 
isms between  the  language  of  Demosthenes  and  Paul,"  he 
concludes  with  the  assertion:  "That  Paul  derived  them  all 
by  mere  accident  from  the  conversational  language  of  his 
day  is  incredible.  He  had  read,  and  was  familiar  with 
Demosthenes,  the  model  of  Greek  popular  eloquence,  and 
involuntarily  appropriated  many  of  his  expressions."  We 
would  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  appropriation 
might  be  both  conscious  and  voluntary,  for  Paul  would  not 
hesitate  to  avail  himself  of  any  advantage  of  form  or  phrase 
which  would  give  his  speech  or  his  composition  readier 
access  to  the  hearing  and  the  heart  of  the  Greek. 

(4)  Influence  of  the  Greek  Poets.  Three  times  Paul 
quotes  directly  from  the  Greek  poets.  In  writing  to  the 
Corinthians  Paul  quotes  an  Iambic  trimeter  from  the  Thais 
of  Menander,  which  Menander  is  supposed  to  have  quoted 
from  Euripides.74  In  writing  to  Titus  Paul  quotes  a 
description  of  the  Cretans  in  hexameter  verse  probably 
taken  from  Epimenides,  whom  Paul  declares  to  be  "one  of 


72  Kypke.    Observationes  sacrae.    Wratislav.    1755. 

73  Koster,  Dr.  Friedrich,  of  Stade.  Studien  und  Kritiken.     1854. 
Sceond  number. 

74  I  Cor.  15^  33,   <pdeifiovciv  i/Oi/  xpi/<J0'  6/ut?iiai  Kauai. 


ioo  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

themselves,  a  prophet  of  their  own."  75  In  Paul's  speech  at 
Athens,  recorded  in  the  book  of  Acts,  he  quotes  from  "cer- 
tain of  your  own  poets"  a  line  found  in  a  Hymn  to  Zeus  by 
Cleanthes  and  also  occurring  in  the  Phenomena  of  Aratus.76 
Upon  these  quotations  we  make  the  following  observa- 
tions. 

(a)  Paul  is  the  only  writer  in  the  New  Testament  who 
makes  any  direct  quotations  of  this  sort  from  the  Greek 
literature. 

(b)  These  quotations  are  all  from  minor  poets.  A  man 
who  is  so  well  acquainted  with  the  minor  poets  of  any 
literature  as  to  be  able  to  quote  from  them  aptly  and  offhand 
will  not  be  likely  to  be  ignorant  of  the  more  important  poets 
of  that  literature.  If  he  read  Menander,  he  would  read 
Euripides.  If  he  read  Epimenides,  he  would  read  Aris- 
tophanes.   If  he  read  Aratus,  he  would  read  /Eschylus. 

(c)  The  aptness  of  these  quotations  to  the  subject  in  hand 
would  seem  to  prove  that  they  are  far  from  being  accidental 
acquisitions  on  the  part  of  Paul,  and  would  rather  evidence 
a  wide  acquaintance  with  the  literature  from  which  they  so 
aptly  are  chosen. 

(d)  "That  the  apostle  was  able  to  quote  a  Cretan  poet  in 
writing  to  one  who  was  ministering  in  Crete,  and  Stoic 
poets  in  addressing  an  audience  largely  composed  of  adher- 
ents of  that  philosophical  school,  may  fairly  be  set  down 
as  a  hint  of  a  more  extended  acquaintance  on  his  part  with 
the  classics  than  the  actual  number  of  the  citations  would 
lead  us  to  infer."  77 

(e)  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  one  of  these  quotations  repre- 
sents both  Menander  and  Euripides  and  another  represents 
both  Aratus  and  Cleanthes;  and  when  Paul  asserts  his 
knowledge  of  the  latter  fact  by  the  use  of  the  plural,  "as 
certain  of  your  own  poets  have  said,"  the  ([notation  of  lines 

76  Titus  i.  12,  K/j//rt<;  ati  ^levarai,  kuku  di/pia,  yaarkpes  apyal. 

76  Acts  17.  28,  Tut)  }ap  mil  yli'uc  hficv. 

77  Edgar  C.  S.  Gibson,  Expositor,  II,  iv,  pp.  344,  345. 


THE  EPISTLES  101 

which  have  a  double  authority  behind  them  would  seem  to 
be  evidence  of  the  careful  investigation  of  a  student  rather 
than  the  chance  phrase  of  a  superficial  acquaintance. 

(/)  To  say  that  Paul  picked  up  these  phrases  on  the  street 
and  that  he  used  the  plural  instead  of  the  singular  by  mere 
accident,  and  that  in  his  Athenian  speech  he  followed  the 
line  of  thought  in  the  poem  of  Aratus  without  knowing  it, 
is  to  present  nothing  but  assertions,  and  the  most  absurd 
assertions  in  the  face  of  positive  evidence  that  Paul  had  a 
degree  of  acquaintance  with  Greek  literature  not  found  in 
any  other  writer  of  the  New  Testament  and  that  he  makes 
a  masterly  use  of  that  literature  at  just  those  points  where 
he  had  need  of  it.  Because  of  the  character  and  aim 
of  his  writings  there  was  little  room  for  quotations  of  this 
sort.  Those  given  are  only  suggestions  of  the  use  Paul 
might  have  made  of  the  Greek  poets  had  occasion  required. 
His  study  of  them  was  one  of  the  elements  which  entered 
into  the  formation  of  his  style. 

(5)  Influence  of  Greek  Philosophy,  (a)  Stoicism.  The 
university  at  Tarsus  was  dominated  by  the  influence  of  the 
Stoical  philosophers  in  the  time  of  Paul.  The  most  influ- 
ential teacher  in  the  city  was  the  Stoic  Athenodorus.  A 
long  line  of  illustrious  Stoics  had  preceded  him,  and  he  and 
his  colleagues  were  recognized  as  the  chief  authorities  in  the 
intellectual  realm  in  the  vicinity  in  which  Paul  grew  up. 
Early  in  life  Paul  became  familiar  with  their  modes  of 
thought  and  ideals  of  conduct  and  character.  Sir  William 
Ramsay  declares  of  a  certain  quality  in  the  Pauline  thought, 
"It  seems  to  me  wholly  inconceivable  in  a  mere  narrow 
Hebrew,  and  wholly  inexplicable  without  an  education  in 
Greek  philosophy,"  7S  and  he  finds  the  traces  of  the  same 
quality  in  the  few  fragments  from  Athenodorus  which  have 
come  down  to  us. 

How  familiar  Paul  was  with  the  tenets  of  the  prevalent 


78  The  Cities  of  Paul,  p.  34. 


102  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Stoical  philosophy  is  apparent  in  the  speech  made  before 
the  Stoics  and  Epicureans  at  Athens.79  In  this  address,  as 
in  the  later  speech  before  the  Sadducees  and  the  Pharisees 
in  the  council  chamber  at  Jerusalem,  Paul  chose  to  ally  him- 
self squarely  with  the  one  school  as  against  the  other,  (a) 
His  first  sentence  struck  directly  at  the  Epicurean  theory 
of  the  origin  of  the  world  by  the  fortuitous  concourse  of 
atoms  and  arrayed  him  with  the  Stoics  in  their  doctrine 
of  the  Divine  Wisdom  and  Providence  creating  and  ruling 
all  things,  (b)  Paul  went  on  to  say,  "God  dwelleth  not  in 
temples  made  with  hands."  Seneca,  the  most  prominent 
contemporary  representative  of  Stoicism,  had  put  their  doc- 
trine into  these  words,  "The  whole  world  is  the  temple  of 
the  immortal  gods,"  so  and  "Temples  are  not  to  be  built  to 
God  of  stones  piled  on  high.  He  must  be  consecrated  in  the 
heart  of  every  man."  81  (c)  Paul  said,  "Neither  is  God 
served  by  men's  hands,  as  though  he  needed  anything,  see- 
ing he  himself  giveth  to  all  life,  and  breath,  and  all  things." 
Seneca  put  the  same  truth  in  this  form:  "God  wants  not 
ministers.  How  so?  He  himself  ministereth  to  the  human 
race."  82  (d)  Paul  said,  "God  made  of  one  every  nation 
of  men  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth."  Seneca  agrees, 
"We  are  members  of  a  vast  body.  Nature  made  us  kin, 
when  she  produced  us  from  the  same  things  and  to  the  same 
ends."83  (e)  Paul  said,  "God  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us;  for  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being." 
Seneca  wrote,  "God  is  at  hand  everywhere  and  to  all 
men."  82  and  again,  "God  is  near  thee ;  he  is  with  thee ;  he  is 
within."84  (f)  Paul  quoted  as  a  proof  passage  acceptable 
and  conclusive  to  his  audience  from  the  Hymn  of  Cleanthes 
the  Stoic,  which  Bishop  Lightfoot  says  is  "the  noblest 
expression  of  heathen  devotion  which  Greek  literature  has 


79  Acts  17.  24-29.  K  Ep.  Mor.,  xcv,  47. 

80  Dc  Bencf.,  vii,  7.  M  Ep.  Mor.,  xcv,  52  . 

81  Frag.  123,  in  Lactant.    Div.  Inst.,  vi,  25.  M  Ep.  Mor.,  xli,  1. 


THE  EPISTLES  103 

preserved  to  us," 85  and  also  from  the  Phenomena  of 
Aratus,  another  Stoic  poet  and  philosopher  and  Paul's  fel- 
low countryman,  that  famous  line  which  recognized  the 
Divine  Fatherhood  and  emphasized  the  universal  brother- 
hood, "For  we  are  also  his  offspring."  (g)  Then  Paul  pro- 
ceeded, "Being  then  the  offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to 
think  the  godhead  is  like  unto  gold  or  silver  or  stone,  graven 
by  art  or  device  of  men."  Seneca  parallels  the  thought 
again :  "Thou  shalt  not  form  him  of  silver  and  gold :  a 
true  likeness  of  God  cannot  be  molded  of  this  material."  8ti 

Bishop  Light  foot  says  that  in  this  speech  Paul  "shows  a 
clear  appreciation  of  the  elements  of  truth  contained  in 
their  philosophy  and  a  studied  coincidence  with  their  modes 
of  expression."87  Lewin  declares:  "They  would  hardly 
have  condescended  to  discuss  such  high  matters  with  him 
had  he  not  been  capable  of  doing  battle  with  them  upon 
their  own  ground.  He  must,  therefore,  have  been  familiar 
with  the  doctrines  of  both  schools."  88  Step  by  step  Paul 
had  reproduced  the  philosophical  faith  of  the  Stoics  in 
their  own  phrases  and  forms.  There  are  but  six  verses  in 
the  book  of  Acts,  giving  us  an  abstract  or  a  summary  of 
Paul's  prelude  to  his  discourse  on  the  resurrection,  but  they 
are  filled  with  parallels  to  the  Stoical  philosophy  and  they 
include  an  explicit  quotation  from  the  Stoical  poetry ;  and 
no  evidence  could  be  clearer  than  that  which  these  verses 
give  to  Paul's  conscious  appropriation  of  the  Greek  phi- 
losophy and  his  purpose  to  make  the  most  of  it  as  an  intro- 
duction to  his  higher  truth. 

Such  a  thoroughgoing  appreciation  of  certain  elements 
in  the  Stoic  thought  must  have  left  some  trace  of  itself  in 
the  Pauline  writings.  If  we  look  for  parallels  in  the  epistles 
we  have  no  trouble  in  finding  them.  Lightfoot  gives  a  long 
list    of    them,89    occurring    in    First    Corinthians,    Second 

85  Dissertations  on  the  Apostolic  Age,  p.  288. 

86  Ep.  Mor.,  xxi,  11.  M  Lewin,  Life  of  Paul,  p.  12. 

87  Lightfoot,  op.  cit.,  p.  288.  89  Op.  cit.,  pp.  270-272,  289-293. 


ic'4  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Corinthians,  Galatians,  Romans,  Colossians,  Ephesians, 
Philippians,  First  Timothy,  Titus,  and  Second  Timothy; 
and  after  making  all  allowances  for  fallacious  coincidences, 
uncertain  priority,  and  so  on,  in  his  summary  of  results, 
he  says,  "Paul  found  in  the  ethical  language  of  the  Stoics 
expressions  more  fit  than  he  could  find  elsewhere  to  de- 
scribe in  certain  aspects  the  duties  and  privileges,  the 
struggles  and  the  triumphs  of  the  Christian  life."  n"  Bishop 
Gore  in  his  commentary  discussion  of  the  second  chapter 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  says,  "What  Paul  teaches 
about  the  moral  consciousness,  and  possibility  of  moral 
goodness,  among  the  Gentiles  has  not  a  Jewish  sound  at 
all.  The  Jewish  teachers  generally  would  not  have  admitted 
any  goodness  acceptable  to  God  in  the  heathen  world.  In 
fact,  Paul  is  here  accepting  the  principle  of  a  universal 
presence  and  operation  of  God  in  the  human  heart,  outside 
the  limit  of  any  special  revelation,  and  he  accepts  it  in  terms 
largely  derived  from  current  Stoic  philosophy."  9l 

There  are  fundamental  differences  between  Stoic  and 
Christian  thought.  Paul  knew  that  as  well  as  anyone; 
but  he  continually  adopted  Stoic  phraseology  as  far  as  he 
found  it  available  for  the  ends  he  had  in  view.  What  was 
true  of  the  Stoical  philosophy  was  equally  true  of  other 
philosophical  schools.  Lewin  suggests  rightly,  "The  con- 
templative turn  of  Paul's  mind  would  lead  him  naturally 
to  study  the  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  generally."  9-  The 
knowledge  of  one  system  of  philosophy,  therefore,  almost 
of  necessity  would  imply  an  understanding  of  its  prede- 
cessors, furnishing  the  foundation  upon  which  it  had  built. 
Have  we  any  evidence  that  Paul's  style  or  his  thought  was 
influenced  at  any  point  by  the  great  Greek  masters  in  this 
held?  We  think  we  have.  We  will  look  at  Aristotle  first 
for  a  moment. 


90  Lightfoot,  op.  cit.,  p.  287. 

91  Gore,  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  p.  99. 

92  Lewin,  op.  cit.,  p.  12. 


THE  EPISTLES  105 

(  b )  Aristotle.  We  find  Aristotle  saying  of  men  eminent 
for  wisdom  and  virtue,  "Against  such  there  is  no  law,  for 
they  themselves  are  a  law,"  93  and  of  the  real  gentleman, 
"He  will  bear  himself  thus,  as  being  a  law  unto  himself."  94 
In  one  of  Paul's  epistles  we  find  the  first  clause  repeated 
word  for  word,95  and  in  another  epistle  the  thought  of 
the  second  passage  is  exactly  reproduced.96  Such  close 
coincidences  are  likely  to  have  been  copied  consciously. 

The  greatest  of  the  Greek  philosophers  was  Plato,  and 
we  would  expect  to  find  traces  of  his  influence  upon  Paul. 

(c)  Plato,  (a)  Had  Paul  read  in  Plato,  "But  such  as 
are  true  racers,  arriving  at  the  end,  both  receive  the  prizes 
and  are  crowned"  ?  97  Did  the  memory  of  Plato's  phrases 
as  well  as  the  sight  of  the  Greek  festivals  suggest  his 
repeated  figures  from  the  race-course?  98  (b)  Had  he  read 
in  Plato,  "Shall  we  not  agree,  that  as  to  the  man  who  is 
beloved  of  the  gods  whatever  comes  to  him  from  the  gods 
will  all  be  the  best  possible?"09  and  had  he  immediately 
appropriated  this  sentiment  as  expressing  the  triumph  of 
Christian  and  monotheistic  faith?100  (c)  We  wonder  as 
we  read  Paul's  epistles  if  he  had  not  read  in  his  Plato  that 
"Love  is  the  fairest  and  the  best  in  himself,  and  the  cause 
of  what  is  fairest  and  best  in  all  other  things,"  101  or  (d) 
"He  who  has  lived  as  a  true  philosopher  has  reason  to  be 
of  good  cheer  when  he  is  about  to  die,  and  after  death  he 
may  hope  to  receive  the  greatest  good  in  the  other 
world,"102  or  (e)  "There  is  a  victory  and  defeat — the  first 
and  best  of  victories,  the  lowest  and  worst  of  defeats — 
which  each  man  gains  or  sustains  at  the  hands  not  of 
another,  but  of  himself ;  this  shows  that  there  is  a  war 


93  Politics,  III,  xiii,  14.  "  Rep.,  10,  612. 

94  Nic.  Eth.,  IV,  viii.  10°  Rom.  8.  28. 

95  Gal.  5.  23.  101  Conv.,  197;  compare  1  Cor.  13. 

96  Rom.  2.  14.  m  Phaed.,  64;  compare  2  Cor.  5. 

97  Rep.,  io,  613.  Phil.  1.  23;  2  Tim.  4.  7,  8. 
98 1  Cor.  9.  24;  2  Tim.  4.  7,  etc. 


106  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

against  ourselves  going  on  in  every  individual  of  us."  103 
(f)  He  could  have  read  in  Plato  that  vivid  description  of 
those  gluttonous  and  intemperate  souls  whose  belly  was 
their  God.104  (g)  He  could  have  learned  from  Plato  that 
to  be  carnally-minded  was  death.105  (h)  Plato  would  have 
pictured  for  him  the  truth  that  the  God  of  this  world 
blindeth  the  eyes  of  his  votaries,  and  Paul  never  could 
have  forgotten  the  picture  when  he  had  once  read  it.  106 
Eusebius  tells  us  that  Plato  had  attained  the  porch  of  Chris- 
tian truth.107  Justin  Martyr  said,  "The  Platonic  dogmas 
are  not  foreign  to  Christianity."  Paul  would  be  quick  to 
perceive  this  and  glad  to  acknowledge  it.  We  have  sug- 
gested only  a  few  possibilities  of  Platonic  influence  upon 
Paul's  phraseology  and  thought.  Many  more  could  be 
adduced. 

(d)  Philosophical  Terms.  The  Pauline  attitude  of  appre- 
ciation for  all  that  was  good  in  the  Greek  philosophy  is 
shown  not  only  in  the  quotation  of  sentences  and  the  appro- 
priation of  truths  and  the  parallelisms  of  thought  but  also 
in  the  adoption  of  characteristic  terms  in  the  philosophical 
vocabulary.  The  best  example  is  the  word  avvei^ai^, 
"conscience."  Cramer  says  in  his  lexicon  that  "both  the 
expression  and  the  fully  correspondent  idea  are  foreign 
to  the  Old  Testament."  Only  one  instance  has  been  found 
of  the  use  of  this  word  in  an  ethical  sense  in  either  the 
Septuagint  or  the  Apocrypha.  No  writer  in  the  New 
Testament  has  used  it  as  Paul  does  except  Peter  in  his 
epistle,  which  at  so  many  points  shows  a  dependence  upon 
Pauline  language  and  thought.  The  word  was  adopted  and 
used  first  by  Paul.  In  his  speeches  in  the  book  of  Acts 
and  in  his  epistles  it  is  found  to  occur  twenty-two  times. 


103  Laws.,  626;  compare  Rom.  7.  22;  Gal.  5.  17. 

104  Rep.,  9,  586;  compare  Phil.  3.  19. 

105  Phacd.,  69  and  81;  compare  Rom.  8.  5;  Gal.  6.  8. 
1MTheaet.,  176;  Rep.,  7,  514;  compare  2  Cor.  4.  4;  Gal.  6.  7. 
107  Praep.  Evang.,  13,  14- 


THE  EPISTLES  107 

He  got  the  word  neither  from  the  Old  Testament  nor  from 
his  Jewish  contemporaries.  It  was  a  term  in  current  use 
among  the  Stoics.  It  represented  to  them  the  inner  con- 
sciousness of  the  Divine  Law.  It  was  worthy  of  consecra- 
tion to  the  cause  of  Christ.  Paul  adopted  it,  deepened  its 
meaning,  and  introduced  it  into  the  vocabulary  of  the 
Christian  Church. 

Another  example  of  Paul's  appropriation  of  favorite 
and  characteristic  terms  from  the  Greek  philosophy  is 
found  in  the  word  avTapiceia.  This  word  had  been  used 
by  Aristotle,  but  it  was  current  in  Paul's  day  as  representing 
one  of  the  fundamental  notions  of  the  Stoic  school.  The 
ideal  man  of  the  Stoic  philosophers  was  both  contented 
and  self-sufficient.  He  would  want  nothing  belonging  to 
others.  Within  himself  he  would  possess  all  things.  Paul 
appropriated  this  ideal  for  the  Christian  life,  and  he  claimed 
to  realize  it  in  his  own  experience.  He  said  of  himself 
and  other  Christians :  "We  have  nothing  and  yet  possess 
all  things.  ...  In  everything,  at  every  time  we  have  all 
self-sufficiency  (avrdpiceiav)  ...  in  everything  being 
enriched.  We  have  learned,  in  whatever  circumstances  we 
may  be,  to  be  content  (avrapK^).  We  have  all  things,  full 
and  overflowing."  108  The  Stoic's  term  had  been  accepted 
without  hesitation,  and  its  conception  glorified  by  the  suffi- 
ciency furnished  in  Christ. 

Other  ethical  terms  taken  from  the  current  use  of  the 
philosophical  schools  are  found  in  the  Pauline  epistles,  such 
as  emeiictia,  TrpaoT^c,  and  others.  Other  terms  are  disap- 
proved by  Paul,  such  as  dperrj  and  Tjdovrj.  He  uses  these 
only  to  brand  them  as  unworthy  of  comparison  with  Chris- 
tian ideals.  Both  his  selection  and  rejection  bear  witness 
to  the  influence  of  this  current  philosophical  phraseology 
upon  Paul's  style. 

(6)  Incarnation  of  the  Greek  Spirit.     Krenkel  believes 


2  Cor.  6.  10;  2  Cor.  9.  8,  11;  Phil.  4.  11,  18. 


108  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

that  the  spirit  of  "entirely  genuine  Attic  urbanity"  char- 
acterizes both  Paul  and  his  writings.  The  proper  appre- 
ciation of  such  a  statement  must  be  reserved  for  those 
who  have  a  thoroughgoing  knowledge  of  the  whole  of 
Greek  literature  and  life.  It  is  noteworthy,  however,  that 
those  who  are  most  thoroughly  at  home  in  this  field  are 
most  impressed  with  this  fact.  Such  men  as  Ernst  Curtius, 
Canon  Hicks,  and  Sir  William  Ramsay  are  ready  to  agree 
that  Paul  had  "that  ready  versatility,  that  social  courtesy, 
that  large  comprehensiveness,  that  wide  experience  and 
capacity  for  dealing  with  varied  interests  and  intricate 
matters  of  business  which  made  him  an  ideal  specimen  of 
what  the  Greeks  would  call  a  true  gentleman,  aaXbq  n.ayad6<;, 
fair  and  good,  a  spirit  more  flexible  and  more  charming 
than  natural  Semitic  dignity."  109  "Coleridge  was  struck  by 
the  fact  that  Paul  had  the  courteous  grace  and  refinement 
of  a  Lancelot.  Of  the  Knights  of  the  Table  Round  who 
founded  the  great  order  of  Christian  chivalry,  Paul  was 
the  most  nobly  mannered  man  of  all."110  This  spirit 
Paul  caught  from  the  Greeks.  It  affected  his  conduct  and 
it  influenced  his  style. 

John  Kelman,  speaking  of  the  influence  of  the  Greek 
spirit  upon  Paul,  says:  "A  culture  affects  the  minds  of  men 
far  more  by  its  atmosphere,  its  delicate  play  of  feeling,  its 
subtle  spiritual  appeal  to  one's  tastes  and  inclinations.  Of 
such  influence  we  find  abundant  evidence  in  Paul.  .  .  . 
He  saw  how  godlike  the  ideals  of  Greece  had  been,  how 
powerful  for  God  they  must  ever  be,  if  they  are  kept  alive 
and  pure.  He  was  far  too  wise  a  man  not  to  utilize  such 
a  spirit ;  and  he  did  utilize  it.  .  .  .  He  revived  in  his 
Christian  teaching  much  that  was  best  and  most  appealing 
in  that  wonderful  life  that  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon  so 
hard  a  destiny.  .  .  .  Must  there  not  have  been  many  who 
felt   that   the   old   Greek   spirit   had    found   true   voice   at 

109  Farrar,  op.  cit.,  p.  698. 

110  Kellet,  Expositor,  VI,  ix,  340. 


THE  EPISTLES  109 

last"  m  in  these  epistles  as  well  as  in  the  sermons  of  Paul? 
The  best  of  the  Greek  spirit  permeated  Paul's  life  and 
letters  as  they  did  not  in  the  case  of  any  other  Jew  in  his- 
tory. He  brought  into  the  gospel  the  Greek  grace  and  glad- 
ness and  liberty  and  courtesy  and  devotion  to  the  ideal 
which  gives  it  imperishable  charm.  He  was  the  only  one 
among  the  apostles  who  was  qualified  by  birth  and  early 
environment  and  later  education  to  give  to  the  Greek-speak- 
ing world  of  that  day  the  revelation  of  the  beauty  and 
liberty  and  universality  which  was  inherent  in  the  teachings 
of  Jesus. 

As  Moses  was  skilled  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  thus  was  prepared  to  become  the  great  lawgiver  of  his 
people,  Paul  was  familiar  with  all  the  wisdom  of  his  time, 
and  thus  was  able  to  give  to  the  Christian  Church  a  breadth 
and  general  culture  characteristic  of  the  Greek  rather  than 
of  the  Jew  and  to  free  it  from  the  bondage  to  the  letter 
and  to  give  it  all  the  liberty  of  the  spirit  which  the  greatest 
of  the  world's  thinkers  among  the  Greeks  had  enjoyed  and 
in  this  way  to  fit  it  for  the  conquest  of  all  the  peoples  for 
the  Christ. 

(7)  Language  and  Vocabulary.  The  Pauline  Greek  is 
considered  the  most  typical  form  of  Hellenistic  Greek  in 
the  New  Testament.  Paul  composed  in  Greek.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  he  thought  in  Hebrew  and  translated 
his  thought  as  he  dictated  these  letters.  We  may  say  truly 
that  Paul  created  the  theological  vocabulary  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  in  a  great  measure.  He  made  a  new  speech 
for  the  new  faith.  He  made  use  of  the  old  Hebrew  and 
Greek  words  and  ideas  as  far  as  he  found  them  adequate 
and  serviceable ;  but  when  they  failed  him  he  coined  new 
words  and  introduced  new  formulae,  words  like  Kvpian6<; 
and  phrases  like  kv  ^pmrcj.  He  gave  new  meanings  to  old 
words  and  he  stamped  his  meaning  upon  the  most  char- 


Expository  Times,  xii,  515,  516. 


no  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

acteristic  words  of  the  Christian  faith,  such  as  "right- 
eousness," "justification,"  "faith,"  "love,"  "flesh,"  "spirit," 
"redemption,"  "propitiation,"  "reconciliation,"  "grace," 
"mercy,  "peace."  Of  the  four  thousand  six  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  words  which  make  up  the  New  Testament 
vocabulary  five  hundred  and  ninety-seven,  or  more  than  one- 
tenth,  are  used  by  Paul  alone. 

4.  Paul  the  Rabbi.  Whatever  influence  the  Greek  cul- 
ture and  thought  may  have  had  on  Paul,  we  must  not  for- 
get the  fact  that  he  was  born  a  Jew  and  trained  a  Jew. 
The  Hellenist  Jew  was  different  from  the  Palestinian  Jew, 
but  he  still  was  a  Jew.  He  may  have  been  emancipated 
from  some  of  the  narrowness  and  provincialism  of  his 
brethren  in  the  little  home  land,  but  he  never  was  eman- 
cipated from  his  racial  characteristics.  He  lived  and  died 
a  Jew.  Paul  may  have  brought  from  Tarsus  to  the  school 
of  Gamaliel  in  Jerusalem  a  liking  for  Greek  letters  and  an 
appreciation  for  Greek  ideals  and  life,  but  he  carried  from 
the  school  of  Gamaliel  in  Jerusalem  a  training  as  a  Jewish 
rabbi  from  which  he  never  could  have  wholly  freed  him- 
self even  had  he  so  desired.  There  is  not  a  page  in  Paul's 
epistles  which  does  not  bear  the  stamp  of  his  Jewish  ante- 
cedents. No  one  but  a  Jew  either  would  have  thought 
or  could  have  written  such  discussions  as  we  find  in  them. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  Jewish  phrases  and  expres- 
sions are  to  be  found  everywhere  in  Paul's  writings. 

(1)  The  rabbinical  theology  is  apparent  occasionally  and 
the  rabbinical  ideas  and  methods  of  argument  sometimes 
are  followed  quite  after  the  models  of  the  rabbinical  schools. 
We  cite  the  best  examples : 

(a)  There  is  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  Old 
Testament  story  of  Sarah  and  Isaac,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Hagar  and  Ishmael,  on  the  other  hand,  in  which  Ishmad 
is  made  to  represent  the  law  and  Isaac  the  gospel,  and  the 
two  women  are  the  two  covenants,  and  I  [agar  is  Mount 
Sinai   in   Arabia,  and  answers  to  the  Jerusalem  that   was 


THE  EPISTLES  in 

then,  while  Sarah  answers  to  the  spiritual  Jerusalem  which 
is  free.112  The  whole  paragraph  seems  to  the  Occidental 
mind  to  be  fantastic  and  rabbinic,  but  it  was  quite  after 
the  manner  to  which  Paul  had  been  accustomed  in  his 
schoolroom  and  synagogue  days. 

(b)  In  the  same  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  Paul  suggests 
that  the  promise  was  made  to  Abraham  and  to  his  seed.  He 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  word  "seed"  is  singular 
and  not  plural,  and  argues  on  that  basis  that  the  fulfillment 
of  the  promise  is  to  be  found  only  in  one,  namely, 
Christ.113  The  word  could  not  have  been  plural,  either  in 
the  original  Septuagint  Greek  or  the  Hebrew ;  but  such  a 
grammatical  quibble  would  seem  perfectly  justifiable  as  a 
basis  for  a  theological  conclusion  to  Paul's  rabbinical  con- 
temporaries. 

(c)  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians114  Paul  quotes  from 
a  psalm  which  pictured  Jehovah  as  a  conqueror  making  his 
solemn  entry  into  Zion  with  many  captives  in  his  train  and 
receiving  gifts  from  vanquished  foes.  Paul  interprets  the 
passage  as  descriptive  of  Christ,  and  he  quotes  the  psalm 
not  as  it  read  in  the  original  but  as  it  was  paraphrased  and 
perverted  by  the  Jews  and  is  found  in  the  Targum  and  the 
Peshito  to-day,  in  a  form  familiar  to  his  mind  from  the 
discussions  of  it  in  the  schools;  and  he  represents  Christ 
as  the  dispenser  of  royal  bounties  rather  than  the  receiver 
of  homage  and  oblations.  He  does  not  say  that  he  received 
gifts  from  men,  but  that  he  gave  gifts  to  men.  He  prob- 
ably did  not  have  the  Hebrew  text  by  him  when  he  quoted, 
but  he  dictated  the  words  as  he  remembered  them  in  the 
speech  of  the  rabbis  of  his  day. 

(2)  A  still  more  patent  proof  of  the  influence  of  his 
rabbinical  training  is  to  be  found  in  Paul's  references  to  the 
traditions  and  legends  of  the  Jews.    These  things  were  not 

112  Gal.  4.  21-31. 

113  Gal.  3.  16. 

114  Eph.  4.  8. 


ii2  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

found  in  the  Scriptures.  Paul  got  them  from  the  home 
and  the  school.  The  most  noticeable  of  these  are  as  fol- 
lows: 

(a)  "Even  as  Jannes  and  Jambres  withstood  Moses,  so 
do  these  also  withstand  the  truth."  115  These  proper  names, 
"Jannes"  and  "Jambres,"  are  not  found  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment narrative.  They  must  have  been  taken  from  current 
Jewish  tradition.  In  all  probability  the  names  are  not  the 
right  ones,  for  it  would  be  strange  indeed  and  almost  incon- 
ceivable that  the  correct  names  for  these  individuals  should 
have  been  preserved  through  all  the  centuries  without  being 
recorded.  Then,  too,  these  names  are  not  Egyptian  but 
Jewish,  and  their  meanings,  "The  Seducer"  and  "The 
Rebel,"  would  suggest  that  they  were  names  imposed  upon 
these  men  by  their  enemies  rather  than  the  ones  they  orig- 
inally bore. 

(b)  "They  drank  of  a  spiritual  rock  that  followed  them: 
and  the  rock  was  Christ."  116  The  reference  here  is  to  the 
tradition  of  the  Jews  that  the  rock  from  which  water  flowed 
for  the  refreshment  of  the  Israelites  in  the  wilderness  was 
a  round  stone  which  rolled  after  the  tribes  on  their  journey- 
ings  and  when  they  halted  came  and  settled  itself  in  the 
court  of  the  Tent  of  Meeting;  and  when  the  princes  came 
and  stood  beside  it  and  said,  "Spring  up,  O  well!"  the 
waters  gushed  out  from  it  again.  The  legend  is  incredible, 
of  course,  and  Paul  does  not  sanction  it  or  guarantee  its 
truthfulness.  He  does  allude  to  it,  and  give  a  spiritual 
interpretation  to  its  fantastic  suggestion. 

(c)  "The  law  was  ordained  through  angels  by  the  hand 
of  a  mediator."  117  If  this  is  true,  it  is  not  stated  in  the 
Old  Testament.  It  rests  upon  Jewish  tradition  as  its  only 
authority.  Paul  had  heard  Stephen  make  the  same  state- 
ment in  his  defense  before  his  martyrdom.    It  was  a  matter 

"« 2  Tim.  3.  8. 

116  1  Cor.  10.  4. 

117  Gal.  3.  19. 


THE  EPISTLES  113 

of  common  belief  among  the  Jews  of  that  day.  It  may 
have  rested  upon  the  Septuagint  text,  but  it  had  no  warrant 
in  the  Hebrew. 

(d)  "For  this  cause  ought  the  woman  to  have  a  sign  of 
authority  upon  her  head,  because  of  the  angels." 118  It 
usually  is  supposed  that  Tertullian  was  right  in  saying  that 
Paul  prescribed  the  veiling  of  women  "because  of  the  evil 
angels,  of  whom  we  read  that  they  fell  from  God  and  from 
heaven  on  account  of  lust."  119  This  notion  is  found  again 
and  again  in  the  Talmud  and  was  one  of  the  familiar 
Hagadoth  in  the  days  of  Paul. 

(3)  On  these  remnants  of  rabbinical  learning  and  lore 
which  we  find  in  the  epistles  of  Paul  we  offer  the  following 
suggestions : 

(a)  Considering  Paul's  Jewish  training  at  Tarsus  and  at 
Jerusalem,  it  is  most  surprising  that  he  does  not  show  more 
traces  of  rabbinism  in  his  writings  than  he  does.  We 
might  have  expected  his  pages  to  be  filled  with  allegorical 
interpretations  and  Talmudic  traditions.  When  we  com- 
pare his  epistles  with  the  writings  and  sayings  of  any  of 
the  contemporary  rabbis  the  immeasurable  superiority  of 
the  compositions  of  Paul  is  apparent  at  once.  Paul's 
experience  as  a  Christian  seems  to  have  lifted  him  above 
the  old  methods  and  freed  him  in  a  most  astonishing  mea- 
sure from  the  old  puerilities.  That  there  are  very  occa- 
sional reminiscences  of  these  things  is  not  surprising.  It  is 
a  marvel  in  our  eyes  that  they  are  so  few. 

(b)  The  validity  of  Paul's  conclusions  never  depends 
upon  his  allusions  to  the  traditions  or  upon  any  allegorical 
interpretation.  As  Luther  said,  "These  are  only  the  paint- 
ing of  the  house,  after.it  has  been  built."  They  are  ap- 
pended as  ornaments,  not  adduced  as  foundation  stones. 

(c)  Paul  does  not  allegorize  any  historical  narrative  into 
thin  air.    He  recognizes  the  fact  and  then  makes  it  the  type 

118 1  Cor.  11.  10. 
119  De  Virg.,  7. 


ii4  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  spiritual  experience.  Such  a  use  of  the  imagination  in 
finding  parallels  between  historical  and  spiritual  facts  seems 
to  us  altogether  legitimate  and  praiseworthy.  It  is  in  no 
danger  of  misunderstanding.  It  may  be  very  useful  in 
fastening  the  truth  upon  the  heart  and  mind. 

(d)  Paul's  allusions  to  legends  not  contained  in  the  Old 
Testament  scriptures  are  only  incidental  and  illustrative. 
He  never  vouches  for  their  truth.  They  have  no  objective 
or  inherent  value  to  him. 

(e)  Paul  was  at  the  farthest  remove  from  the  typical 
rabbis  of  his  day  in  his  thinking  and  his  reasoning.  Tal- 
bot W.  Chambers  was  right  in  saying  that  Paul  was  not 
"narrow  in  his  views,  a  bigot  for  prejudice,  fanciful  in 
interpretation,  and  hair-splitting  in  casuistry.  Nothing  can 
be  farther  from  the  truth.  A  gulf  as  deep  as  Gehenna 
divides  Paul  from  the  Kabbalists.  He  never  sticks  fast  in 
the  letter,  nor  soars  into  imaginary  symbolism.  He  does 
not  magnify  trifles,  or  give  up  substance  in  pursuit  of  form. 
Nor  is  his  reasoning  sophistical  or  barren,  but  fair,  manly, 
and  conclusive.  He  discusses  the  highest  topics  man  can 
consider,  and  in  a  tone  and  with  a  weight  proportioned  to 
their  importance.  .  .  .  Everything  in  matter  and  manner 
and  spirit  is  large  and  comprehensive — in  keeping  with 
the  magnificent  fullness  and  grace  of  the  salvation  he  has 
to  set  forth."  120 

The  transformation  of  Saul  the  Pharisee  into  Paul  the 
apostle  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  world  history ;  but  it  is  not 
a  whit  more  marvelous  than  the  almost  complete  emancipa- 
tion of  the  writer  of  these  epistles  from  the  rabbinical 
training  of  his  youth.  No  man  can  break  absolutely  with 
his  past.  We  find  scattered  traces  of  Paul's  training  here 
and  there  in  his  writings  which  we  think  he  might  have 
discarded  with  the  rest.  Possibly  there  is  more  of  Jewish 
theology  in  these  epistles  than  is  generally  recognized.    We 


120  Homiletic  Review,  ix,  120. 


THE  EPISTLES  115 

do  not  discuss  that  matter  here.  The  thing  which  impresses 
us  most  is  that  Paul  is  so  free  from  that  which  was  waxing 
old  in  theology  and  reasoning  and  which  was  ready  to  van- 
ish away  while  with  a  genius  unparalleled  in  the  church  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  new  theology  destined  to  capture 
the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  world,  some  features  of  which 
all  the  centuries  following  scarcely  have  appreciated  as  they 
ought,  and  some  of  which  are  ideals  to  be  realized  in  the 
yet  future  development  of  Christian  life  and  thought.  Paul 
was  a  pioneer  and  a  prophet.  In  some  respects  we  are 
lagging  behind  him  still. 

5.  Paul  the  Advocate.  There  is  one  more  thing  we 
would  like  to  say  about  the  style  of  Paul.  It  is  the  style 
of  an  advocate.  Paul  was  the  advocate  of  Christianity 
before  the  bar  of  the  world.  He  presents  its  case  and  he 
pleads  its  cause  with  a  legal  ability  which  won  a  favorable 
verdict  from  the  very  first.  Paul  was  more  of  a  lawyer 
than  a  scribe.  He  delights  in  legal  phraseology.  Much  of 
his  theology  is  put  into  a  legalistic  form.  He  was  supremely 
interested  as  a  Pharisee  in  finding  some  way  to  insure  the 
perfect  keeping  of  the  law.  His  chief  conviction  in  connec- 
tion with  Christianity  is  that  that  secret  has  been  discovered 
in  Jesus. 

As  a  Roman  citizen  he  had  some  acquaintance  with  the 
Roman  law.  "There  is  in  some  parts  of  his  teaching  a 
direct  application  of  Roman  legal  principles  in  illustration 
of  his  doctrine,  which  none  but  a  Roman  could  be  expected 
so  to  apply,  none  unless  versed  in  Roman  law  would  be 
able  to  employ."  121  The  best  instance  in  point  is  the  pre- 
sentation of  our  relation  of  sonship  to  God  under  the  figure 
of  adoption  which  was  essentially  a  Roman  and  not  a  Jew- 
ish legal  procedure.  Some  think  that  Paul  coined  the  word 
for  "adoption"  in  our  New  Testament,  since  it  is  not  found 
in  any  earlier  Greek  writer.     It  would  be  strange  if  the 


121  Dean  Meriva'e,  The  Conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  81. 


n6  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

word  vlodeaia  had  not  been  used  before  Paul's  time  as  the 
nearest  equivalent  to  the  Latin  adoptio. 

However,  it  is  the  Jewish  law  with  which  Paul  was  most 
familiar  and  to  which  he  makes  most  frequent  reference. 
He  had  a  natural  liking  for  the  law  courts  and  a  constitu- 
tionally legal  temperament.  Paul  was  a  prince  of  advo- 
cates. His  logic  is  merciless.  He  never  leaves  an  opponent 
until  he  has  made  it  clear  to  a  demonstration  that  the  truth 
is  the  very  opposite  of  that  which  he  had  affirmed.  How 
the  Jews  must  have  dreaded  him  in  those  synagogue  debates 
of  which  we  read  in  the  book  of  Acts,  and  how  fervently 
they  must  have  hated  him  for  the  very  clarity  and  unan- 
swerableness  of  his  argument  when  they  were  not  willing 
to  be  convinced !  Godet  says  of  Paul  that  he  has  a  ''dia- 
lectical rigor  which  will  not  quit  a  subject  till  after  having 
completely  analyzed  it,  nor  an  adversary  till  it  has  trans- 
fixed him  with  its  own  sword."  122  That  is  never  pleasant 
for  the  man  on  the  wrong  side  in  a  debate. 

Paul  never  is  so  careful  of  the  feelings  of  an  opponent  as 
to  sacrifice  or  to  soften  the  plainest  and  most  forcible  put- 
ting of  the  truth.  His  interest  never  fails.  His  energy 
never  palls.  "He  writes  not  only  as  supporting  a  certain 
doctrine,  but  as  defending  it  against  another  and  hostile 
one;  and  not  only  so,  but  as  defending  it  against  that  other 
represented,  as  it  were,  in  the  person  of  a  vigorous,  earnest, 
alert,  and  wily  adversary.  He  feels  the  necessity,  evidently, 
which  belongs  to  such  a  position,  of  massing  and  strengthen- 
ing his  proofs  everywhere ;  of  guarding  himself  against 
suggestions  which  might  arise  at  any  point;  of  meeting 
the  great  difficulties  of  the  subject;  of  showing  that  his  doc- 
trine was  not  contradictory  to  God's  promises  or  his  cove- 
nant. .  .  .  With  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his  nature  he  was 
committed  to  the  grand  idea  which  had  been  revealed  to 
him  from  heaven.     He  threw  himself  with  the  ardor  of  a 


m  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  35. 


THE  EPISTLES  117 

soldier  into  the  conflict  for  its  support.  lie  bent  every 
energy  of  his  being  to  secure  for  it  the  victory,  which  was 
to  his  mind  the  victory  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  .  .  .  How 
far  he  was  from  the  philosophic  calmness  of  the  schools 
and  the  teacher  who,  quietly  and  without  emotion,  arranges 
his  system  of  thought  in  its  divisions  and  subdivisions!  1  le 
was  a  combatant,  an  advocate,  a  preacher.  He  was  con- 
tending for  one  grand  idea,  earnest  to  prove  its  truth,  on  lire 
in  his  inmost  soul  with  the  love  of  it,  striving  from  the  first 
word  to  the  last  of  his  whole  discussion  to  persuade  his 
readers  to  accept  it,  and  to  realize  in  themselves  its  life-giv- 
ing power."  123 

He  sweeps  everything  before  him.  He  argues,  entreats, 
exhorts,  proves,  pleads  with  irresistible  fervor  and  irre- 
pressible faith.  The  style  of  these  epistles  is  that  of  a 
debater  and  an  advocate.  Doubtless  the  substance  of  many 
of  them  is  repeated  from  the  oral  discourses  of  the  apostle. 
He  has  argued  these  questions  out  with  many  an  individual 
and  before  many  a  congregation.  He  knows  the  objections 
usually  offered.  He  is  acquainted  with  all  the  twists  and 
turns  of  ordinary  debate  on  these  subjects.  He  puts  into 
writing  the  products  of  his  preaching  and  apologetic  and 
evangelistic  experience.  The  epistles  are  not  polished  ora- 
tions nor  didactic  treatises.  They  are  full  of  the  give  and 
take  of  ordinary  conversation  and  the  parry  and  thrust  of 
continuous  debate. 

Yet  the  wonder  of  it  all  is  that  they  never  lose  themselves 
in  petty  details,  but  always  come  out  upon  the  heights  of  a 
supreme  conclusion.  That  marks  Paul  as  not  only  one  of 
the  great  debaters  but  also  one  of  the  great  thinkers  of 
world  literature.  Sabatier  says  of  him,  "He  ranks  with 
Plato,  with  Augustine  and  Calvin,  with  Schleiermacher, 
Spinoza,  Hegel.  An  imperious  necessity  impelled  him  to 
give  his  belief  full  dialectic  expression,  and  to  raise  it  above 


123  Timothy  Dwight,  in  Homiletic  Review,  ix,  pp.  7,  8,  12. 


u8  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

its  contradictories.  Having  affirmed  it,  he  confronts  it  at 
once  with  its  opposite ;  and  his  faith  is  incomplete  until  he 
has  triumphed  over  this  antithesis  and  reached  a  point  of 
higher  unity." 121  Many  people  cannot  follow  to  these 
heights. 

We  can  understand  something  of  the  mingled  bewilder- 
ment and  appreciation  which  the  great  scholars  of  the 
church  have  felt  as  they  studied  the  style  of  the  apostle 
Paul.  We  append  some  of  their  estimates  as  an  aid  to  our 
own. 

6.  Estimates  of  Paul's  Style.  ( i )  The  earliest  statement 
on  the  subject  which  we  have  is  found  in  the  so-called 
Second  Epistle  of  Peter.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  inside 
our  New  Testament  canon  there  is  an  estimate  of  Paul's 
style.  It  reads,  "Account  that  the  long-suffering  of  our 
Lord  is  salvation ;  even  as  our  beloved  brother  Paul  also, 
according  to  the  wisdom  given  to  him,  wrote  unto  you ; 
as  also  in  all  his  epistles,  speaking  in  them  of  these  things ; 
wherein  are  some  things  hard  to  be  understood,  which  the 
ignorant  and  unstedfast  wrest,  as  they  do  also  the  other 
scriptures,  unto  their  own  destruction."  125 

(2)  Origen,  the  greatest  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  says:  "The 
apostle  is  like  a  person  who  leads  a  stranger  into  a  magni- 
ficent palace  but  perplexed  with  various  cross  and  intricate 
passages  and  many  remote  and  secret  apartments.  He 
shows  him  some  things  at  a  distance,  out  of  his  opulent 
treasury;  brings  some  things  near  to  his  view,  conceals 
others  from  it,  often  enters  in  at  one  door  and  comes  out 
at  another;  so  that  the  stranger  is  surprised  and  wonders 
whence  he  came,  where  he  is,  and  how  he  shall  get  out." 

(3)  Jerome,  the  greatest  scholar  among  the  Latin 
Fathers,  in  his  letter  to  Pammachius,  says:  "I  will  only 
mention  the  apostle  Paul,  whose  words  seem  to  me,  as  often 
as  I  hear  them,  to  be  not  words,  but  peals  of  thunder. 

124  Sabatier,  The  Apostle  Paul,  p.  89. 

125  2  Pet.  3.  15,  16. 


THE  EPISTLES  119 

Read  his  epistles,  and  especially  those  addressed  to  the 
Romans,  to  the  Galatians,  and  to  the  Ephesians,  in  all  of 
which  he  stands  in  the  thick  of  the  battle,  and  you  will 
see  how  skillful  and  how  careful  he  is  in  the  proofs  which 
he  draws  from  the  Old  Testament,  and  how  warily  he 
cloaks  the  object  which  he  has  in  view.  His  words  seem 
simplicity  itself — the  expressions  of  a  guileless  and  unso- 
phisticated person,  one  who  has  no  skill  either  to  plan  a 
dilemma  or  to  avoid  it.  Still,  whichever  way  you  look,  they 
are  thunderbolts.  His  pleading  halts,  yet  he  carries  every 
point  which  he  takes  up.  He  turns  his  back  upon  his  foe 
only  to  overcome  him;  he  simulates  flight,  but  only  that  he 
may  slay."  126 

(4)  Luther  says  of  Paul,  "Paulus  meras  flammas  loquitur 
— Paul  speaks  mere  flames."  127 

(5)  Erasmus  repeats,  "He  thunders,  he  lightnings,  he 
speaks  mere  flames."  128 

(6)  Casaubon  says,  "Paul  alone  of  all  the  writers  seems 
to  me  not  to  have  written  with  his  fingers,  with  pen  and 
ink,  but  with  the  heart  itself,  the  affection  itself,  and  with 
naked  nerves."  129 

(7)  Tholuck  writes,  "The  style  of  Paul  is  forcible,  brief, 
rapid,  abounding  in  sentences  in  which  he  seems  to  be 
always  laboring  for  some  new  expression  still  stronger  than 
the  preceding,  and  the  words  press  like  waves  upon  each 
other." 

(8)  Renan  in  his  own  graphic  style  declares  of  Paul's 
letters:  "The  language  is,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  it,  pul- 
verized— not  a  single  consecutive  phrase.  It  is  impossible 
to  violate  more  audaciously,  I  say  not  the  genius  of  the 
Greek  language,  but  the  logic  of  human  speech.  One  might 
describe  it  as  a  rapid  conversation  stenographed  and  re- 
produced without  corrections."  13° 

126  Ep.  ad  Pammach.,  68,  13.    129  Adversaria,  ap.  Wolf.,  p.  135. 

127  In  Gal.  1.  13°  St.  Paul,  p.  232. 
J»  Ad  Col.  4.  16. 


120  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

(9)  Philip  Schaff  describes  the  style  of  Paul  as  follows: 
"It  is  manly,  bold,  heroic,  aggressive,  and  warlike ;  yet  at 
times  tender,  delicate,  gentle,  and  winning.  It  is  involved, 
irregular,  and  rugged,  but  always  forcible  and  expressive, 
and  not  seldom  rises  to  more  than  poetic  beauty.  .  .  .  He 
abounds  in  skillful  arguments,  bold  antitheses,  impetuous 
assaults,  abrupt  transitions,  sudden  turns,  zigzag  flashes, 
startling  questions  and  exclamations.  .  .  .  He  drives  the 
opponent  to  the  wall  without  mercy  and  reduces  him  ad 
absurdum,  but  without  ever  indulging  in  personalities.  .  .  . 
His  terseness  makes  him  at  times  obscure,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  somewhat  similar  style  of  Thucydides,  Tacitus, 
and  Tertullian.  His  words  are  as  many  warriors  marching 
on  to  victory  and  peace ;  they  are  like  a  mountain  torrent 
rushing  in  foaming  rapids  over  precipices,  and  then  calmly 
flowing  through  green  meadows,  or  like  a  thunderstorm 
ending  in  a  refreshing  shower  and  bright  sunshine."  131 

(10)  Reuss  says:  "The  style  of  all  these  epistles  is  the 
true  expression  of  the  personality  of  the  author.  The 
defect  of  classical  correctness  and  rhetorical  finish  is  more 
than  compensated  by  the  riches  of  language  and  the  full- 
ness of  expression.  The  condensation  of  construction  de- 
mands not  reading  simply,  but  studying.  Broken  sentences, 
ellipses,  parentheses,  leaps  in  the  argumentation,  allegories, 
rhetorical  figures  express  inimitably  all  the  moods  of  a 
wide-awake  and  cultured  mind,  all  the  affections  of  a  rich 
and  deep  heart,  and  betray  everywhere  a  pen  at  once  bold, 
and  yet  too  slow  for  the  thought.  Antitheses,  climaxes, 
exclamations,  questions  keep  up  the  attention,  and  touching 
effusions  win  the  heart  of  the  reader."  132 

(n)  Pressense  agrees:  "Paul's  own  moral  life  struggled 
for  expression  in  his  doctrine ;  and  to  give  utterance  to  both 
at  once,  Paul  created  a  marvelous  language,  rough  and 
incorrect,  but  full  of  resource  and  invention,  following  his 

131  Schaff,  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  vol.  i,  pp.  753-4. 

132  Geschichtc  der  h.  Schr.  N.  T.,  vol.  i,  p.  67. 


THE  EPISTLES  121 

rapid  leaps  of  thought,  and  bending  to  his  sudden  and 
sharp  transitions.  His  ideas  .  .  .  intermingle  in  seem- 
ing confusion;  but  the  confusion  is  seeming  only,  for 
through  it  all  a  powerful  argument  steadily  sustains  the 
mastery.  The  tongue  of  Paul  is,  indeed,  a  tongue  of 
fire."  133  There  is  sufficient  agreement  among  these  state- 
ments to  verify  our  own  conclusions  concerning  the  style 
of  Paul  and  to  establish  the  direct  and  unmistakable  rela- 
tion between  Paul's  style  and  his  own  character.  We  add 
one  more  estimate  in  further  confirmation  of  both  these 
facts. 

(12)  Farrar  concludes:  "All  that  has  been  written  of  the 
peculiarities  of  Paul's  style  may,  I  think,  be  summed  up  in 
two  words — intense  individuality.  His  style  is  himself. 
His  natural  temperament,  and  the  circumstances  under 
which  that  temperament  found  its  daily  sphere  of  action; 
his  training,  both  Judaic  and  Hellenistic ;  his  conversion 
and  sanctification,  permeating  his  whole  life  and  thoughts — 
these  united  make  up  the  Paul  we  know.  And  each  of  these 
has  exercised  a  marked  influence  on  his  style. 

"1.  The  absorption  in  the  one  thought  before  him,  which 
makes  him  state  without  any  qualification  truths  which, 
taken  in  the  whole  extent  of  his  words,  seem  mutually  irre- 
concilable;  the  dramatic,  rapid,  overwhelming  series  of 
questions  which  show  that  in  his  controversial  passages  he 
is  always  mentally  face  to  face  with  an  objection;  the 
centrifugal  force  of  mental  activity,  which  drives  him  into 
incessant  digressions  and  goings  off  at  a  word,  due  to  his 
vivid  power  of  realization ;  the  centripetal  force  of  imagin- 
ation, which  keeps  all  these  digressions  under  the  control 
of  one  dominant  thought;  and  the  grand  confusions  of 
metaphor;  the  vehemence  which  makes  him  love  the  most 
emphatic  compounds ;  the  irony  and  sarcasm ;  the  chival- 
rously  delicate   courtesy;   the   overflowing   sympathy   with 


133  Apostolic  Era,  p.  254. 


122  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  Jew,  the  pagan,  the  barbarian — with  saint  and  sinner, 
king  and  slave,  man  and  woman,  young  and  old ;  the  passion 
which  now  makes  his  voice  ring  with  indignation  and  now 
break  with  sobs;  the  accumulation  and  variation  of  words, 
from  the  desire  to  set  forth  the  truths  which  he  is  pro- 
claiming in  every  possible  light;  the  emotional  emphasis 
and  personal  references  of  his  style;  the  depressed  humility 
passing  into  boundless  exultation — all  these  are  due  to  his 
natural  temperament,  and  the  atmosphere  of  controversy 
and  opposition  on  the  one  hand,  and  deep  affection  on  the 
other,  in  which  he  worked. 

"2.  The  rhetorical  figures,  play  of  words,  assonances, 
oxymora,  antitheses  of  his  style;  the  constant  widening  of 
his  horizon;  the  traceable  influence  of  cities,  and  even  of 
personal  companions,  upon  his  vocabulary ;  the  references  to 
Hellenic  life ;  the  method  of  quoting  Scripture ;  the  rabbinic 
style  of  exegesis — these  are  due  to  his  training  at  Tarsus 
and  Jerusalem,  his  life  at  Corinth,  Ephesus,  and  Rome. 

"3.  The  daring  faith  which  never  dreads  a  difficulty;  the 
unsolved  antinomies,  which,  though  unsolved,  do  not  trouble 
him ;  'the  bold  soaring  dialectics  with  which  he  rises  from 
the  forms  of  one  finite  and  earthly  thought  to  the  infinite 
and  spiritual  life  embodied  in  them';  the  'language  of 
ecstasy,'  which  was  to  him,  as  he  meant  it  to  be  to  his  con- 
verts, the  language  of  the  work-day  world;  that  transcen- 
dental-absurd, as  it  seems  to  the  world,  which  was  the  very 
life  both  of  his  conscience  and  intellect,  and  made  him  what 
he  was ;  the  way  in  which,  as  with  one  powerful  sweep 
of  the  wing,  he  passes  from  the  pettiest  earthly  conten- 
tions to  the  spiritual  and  the  infinite ;  the  'shrinking  infirm- 
ity and  self-contempt,  hidden  in  a  sort  of  aureole  of  revela- 
tion, abundant  beyond  measure' — this  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  his  citizenship  was  in  heaven,  his  life  hid  with  Christ 
in  God."  134 


134  Op.  rit.,  pp.  692-3. 


THE  EPISTLES  123 

The  apostle  is  in  his  epistles.  We  study  them  together 
in  this  book. 

III.  Value 

1.  Paul's  Work  and  Paul's  Writing.  (1)  The  Work. 
Paul  did  more  for  the  Christian  faith,  and  through  that 
faith  for  the  world,  than  any  other  man  who  ever  lived.  In 
ability  and  achievement  he  was  equal  to  the  whole  company 
of  the  apostles  combined.  He  was  speaking  sober  truth 
when  he  said,  "I  labored  more  abundantly  than  they  all: 
Yet  not  I,  but  the  grace  of  God  which  was  with  me."  135 
Pie  covered  more  territory,  he  founded  more  churches,  he 
influenced  more  of  the  great  centers  of  population,  he 
reached  more  people,  he  had  greater  success  in  his  more 
abundant  labors  than  any  other  preacher  of  the  faith  of 
whom  we  know.  He  took  Christianity  out  of  the  little 
corner  of  the  earth  in  Palestine,  where  it  bade  fair  to 
become  nothing  but  an  obscure  sect  of  a  despised  people, 
and  he  made  it  a  world  power.  He  formulated  it  in  such  a 
fashion  that  it  could  and  would  appeal  to  the  intellect  and 
the  heart  of  all  the  nations.  He  gave  it  such  furnishing  as 
made  it  able  to  overthrow  all  philosophies  or  empires  which 
ventured  to  oppose  it.  He  gave  it  its  elements  of  continu- 
ous and  eternal  success.  He  made  proof  of  this  success 
in  his  own  ministry.  His  work  and  his  accomplishment 
were  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  church. 

(2)  The  Writing.  Paul  has  been  the  most  influential  of 
all  religious  writers.  He  gave  the  watchword  to  the  Protes- 
tant Reformation — "Justification  by  faith."  He  gave  the 
watchword  to  the  Wesleyan  movement — "The  witness  of 
the  Spirit  to  conversion  and  entire  sanctification."  These 
have  been  the  most  important  revivals  in  the  history  of  the 
church,  but  it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  no  great  church 
revival  anywhere  down  the  centuries  or  on  any  of  the  con- 
tinents has  failed  to  base  itself  on  the  teaching  of  Paul  as 

135 1  Cor.  15.  10. 


124  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

recorded  in  his  epistles.  We  must  remember  that  these 
epistles  are  the  earliest  books  of  the  New  Testament.  They 
were  written  before  the  Gospels  were  completed.  They 
formulated  the  theology  of  the  church,  and  they  have  been 
the  church's  chief  authority  in  this  field  ever  since. 

(3)  Relation  between  Paul's  J V riling  and  His  Work. 
These  epistles  were  written  to  aid  Paul  in  certain  exigencies 
in  his  missionary  work,  and  they  were  subsidiary  to  that. 
The  work  was  the  all-important  thing  with  him.  Doubtless 
Paul  never  realized  that  these  letters  would  be  preserved 
through  all  time  and  would  be  read  by  many  millions  after 
his  death.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  these  hasty  com- 
positions would  outlive  his  personal  labors  and  exert  a  still 
wider  influence  upon  the  history  of  the  world  than  his 
personal  work  ever  could.  It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  his- 
tory that  so  much  of  Paul's  work  was  unrecorded  and  is 
long  ago  forgotten,  while  these  occasional  letters,  which 
represented  so  small  a  portion  of  his  time  and  which  occu- 
pied so  little  of  his  attention,  have  survived  him  and  his 
labors,  and  have  multiplied  their  efficiency  many  fold.  It 
is  our  great  blessing  that  Paul  in  all  his  ceaseless  activity 
found  time  for  some  literary  composition.  He  would  not 
have  called  it  by  that  name.  He  just  wrote  letters  when  it 
seemed  to  him  to  be  necessary  to  meet  certain  emergencies 
and  to  accomplish  certain  ends.  He  has  made  us  his  debtors 
by  all  that  he  did  and  still  more  by  all  that  he  wrote.  To 
him  his  writing  would  have  seemed  to  represent  an  almost 
insignificant  part  of  his  life  accomplishment.  It  is  alto- 
gether possible  that  if  Paul  had  written  a  formal  auto- 
biography, he  would  have  omitted  all  mention  of  these 
epistles  as  too  unimportant  to  have  a  place  in  the  account 
of  his  work,  even  as  Luke  has  omitted  all  mention  of  them 
in  the  book  of  Acts.  Yet  to  us  the  epistles  loom  large  in 
the  estimate  of  Paul's  lifework.  Litcra  scripta  manet.  The 
man  is  gone ;  his  written  works  abide,  for  our  study  and  our 
instruction  and  our  enjoyment  to-day. 


THE  EPISTLES  125 

2.  The  Incomparable  Value  of  the  Pauline  Epistles. 

( 1 )  On  this  subject  we  quote  the  authority  of  Ewald,  who 
opens  his  Commentary  on  the  Pauline  Epistles  with  these 
words :  "Considering  these  epistles  for  themselves  only,  and 
apart  from  the  general  significance  of  the  great  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles,  we  must  still  admit  that,  in  the  whole  history 
of  all  centuries  and  of  all  nations,  there  is  no  other  set  of 
writings  of  similar  extent,  which,  as  creations  of  the  fugi- 
tive moment,  have  proceeded  from  such  severe  troubles  of 
the  age,  and  such  profound  pains  and  sufferings  of  the 
author  himself,  and  yet  contain  such  an  amount  of  health- 
fulness,  serenity,  and  vigor  of  immortal  genius,  and  touch 
with  such  clearness  and  certainty  on  the  very  highest  truths 
of  human  aspiration  and  action.  .  .  .  The  smallest  as  well 
as  the  greatest  of  these  epistles  seem  to  have  proceeded  from 
the  fleeting  moments  of  this  earthly  life  only  to  enchain  all 
eternity;  they  were  born  of  anxiety  and  bitterness  of  human 
strife,  to  set  forth  in  brighter  luster  and  with  higher  cer- 
tainty their  superhuman  grace  and  beauty.  The  divine 
assurance  and  firmness  of  the  old  prophets  of  Israel,  the  all- 
transcending  glory  and  immediate  spiritual  presence  of  the 
Eternal  King  and  Lord,  who  had  just  ascended  to  heaven, 
and  all  the  art  and  culture  of  a  ripe  and  wonderfully 
excited  age,  seem  to  have  joined,  as  it  were,  in  bringing 
forth  the  new  creation  of  these  epistles  of  the  times  which 
were  destined  to  last  for  all  times."136 

(2)  Philip  Schaff  agrees  as  to  the  justice  of  this  char- 
acterization. He  says :  "Tracts  for  the  time,  they  were 
tracts  for  all  time.  Children  of  the  fleeting  moment,  they 
contain  truths  of  infinite  moment.  They  compress  more 
ideas  into  fewer  words  than  any  other  writings,  human  or 
divine,  except  the  Gospels.  They  are  of  more  real  and 
genuine  value  to  the  church  than  all  the  systems  of  theology 
from   Origen   to    Schleiermacher.      For   eighteen    hundred 


136  Ewald,  Commentary  on  the  Pauline  Epistles. 


126  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

years  they  have  nourished  the  faith  of  Christendom  and 
will  do  so  to  the  end  of  time." 

(3)  If  Paul  wrote  Second  Corinthians,  Galatians,  and 
Romans  in  one  half  year,  what  might  he  not  have  written 
if  he  had  thought  it  worth  while  to  take  time  from  his 
missionary  labors  to  devote  himself  to  any  prolonged  and 
deliberate  literary  work?  What  he  has  written  always 
leaves  us  with  the  impression  that  he  has  not  exhausted 
himself,  that  he  has  untold  resources  in  reserve.  If  these 
reserve  forces  ever  had  been  called  upon,  what  magnificent 
monuments  to  Paul's  literary  ability  we  might  have  had ! 
Yet  it  is  just  possible  that  any  formal  treatises  or  labored 
compositions  would  have  been  devoid  of  the  personal  ele- 
ment in  these  letters  and  would  have  been  without  their 
consequent  vitality  and  inspiration. 

We  know  that  the  epistles  with  all  their  defects  are  rank- 
ing now  among  the  mightiest  intellectual  forces  in  the 
world.  We  know  that  their  influence  is  widening  and  deep- 
ening all  the  time.  We  know  that  they  are  valued  more 
highly  and  by  more  people  to-day  than  ever  before.  We 
do  not  know  what  the  effect  of  a  ponderous  tome  from 
Paul's  pen  would  have  been.  It  might  be  more  of  a  sedative 
than  an  inspiration. 

We  know  that  these  short  letters  have  established  them- 
selves in  the  hearts  and  the  minds  of  men.  Stalker  is 
right  in  suggesting  that  the  epistles  cause  Paul  to  rise 
"sheer  above  all  other  evangelists  and  missionaries.  Some 
of  them  may  have  approached  him  in  certain  respects — 
Xavier  or  Livingstone  in  the  world-conquering  instinct, 
Saint  Bernard  or  Whitefield  in  earnestness  and  activity. 
But  few  of  these  men  added  a  single  new  idea  to  the  world's 
stock  of  beliefs,  whereas  Paul,  while  at  least  equalling  them 
in  their  own  special  line,  gave  to  mankind  a  new  world  of 
thought."  137    There  is  one  more  subject  to  which  we  ought 


w  Life  of  Saint  Paul,  p.  106. 


THE  EPISTLES  127 

to  give  some  consideration  before  turning  to  the  study  of 
the  individual  epistles. 

3.  The  Relation  of  the  Theology  of  Paul  to  the  Teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  For  almost  half  a  century  now  a  great  con- 
troversy has  been  raging  over  the  authority  of  the  apostle 
Paul.  The  cry  has  been  raised:  "Back  to  Christ!  Paul 
has  misled  us.  There  is  a  great  difference  between 
Christ's  teaching  and  Paul's  preaching.  Paul  ought  to  be 
deposed  from  the  chief  throne  in  theology  which  he  has 
usurped.  He  was  the  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.  Plis  Master 
and  our  Master  must  be  the  highest  and  the  ultimate 
authority.  Therefore,  let  us  forsake  Paul's  guidance  and 
go  back  to  the  only  final  court  of  appeal  in  the  words  of 
Jesus.  Paul  taught  redemption  through  the  cross.  Jesus 
said  little  or  nothing  about  the  cross.  Pie  preached  the 
Father's  love  and  acceptance  of  all  who  would  obey  and 
trust  him.  Paul  has  a  doctrine  of  human  depravity  which 
never  appears  anywhere  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  Paul 
knows  about  the  origin  of  sin  and  its  connection  with  death, 
but  Jesus  never  touches  upon  such  matters.  He  recognizes 
the  fact  of  sin,  but  he  never  formulates  any  doctrine  of  sin 
as  Paul  does.  Jesus  said  that  he  came  to  fulfill  the  law,  but 
Paul  declared  that  the  dispensation  of  the  law  had  been 
abolished  by  him.  The  Christology  of  Paul  is  not  the 
Christology  of  Jesus.  Paul's  doctrine  of  predestination  has 
no  place  in  the  Gospels.  Paul's  philosophy  of  history  has 
nothing  corresponding  to  it  there.  There  is  a  sacramental 
element  in  the  Pauline  epistles  which  is  foreign  to  all  the 
recorded  sayings  of  Jesus.  In  Paul  we  have  the  rabbin- 
ical methods  of  dealing  with  the  Scriptures  and  all  the  wis- 
dom of  the  schools.  In  Jesus  we  have  the  simple  piety 
of  a  Palestinian  peasant.  In  Paul  we  find  apocalyptical 
speculation  and  Hellenistic  habits  of  thought.  In  Jesus  we 
have  the  immediate  intuitions  of  ethical  and  spiritual  in- 
spiration. Jesus  was  a  prophet.  Paul  is  a  theologian. 
Jesus  taught  a  simple  gospel.     Paul  has  distorted  and  per- 


128  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

verted  it.  When  we  pass  from  the  Gospels  to  the  Pauline 
epistles  it  is  as  if  we  stepped  from  the  sunny  mountainside 
into  the  gloomy,  close  atmosphere  of  the  synagogue.  Paul 
is  farther  from  Jesus  than  Jesus  was  from  the  best  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  in  his 
ministry.  Who  founded  Christianity,  Jesus  or  Paul?  Shall 
we  go  back  to  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  or  shall  we  maintain 
the  far  different  Christianity  of  Paul?" 

A  voluminous  literature  has  sprung  up  in  more  or  less 
open  and  complete  representation  of  this  position  against 
Paul,  and  it  has  called  forth  a  number  of  volumes  in  reply. 
It  is  evident  that  we  cannot  enter  into  the  subject  with  any 
degree  of  fullness,  but  we  would  like  to  offer  the  following 
suggestions  in  answer  to  the  general  attack  upon  Paul  by 
these  critics. 

(i)  The  asumption  of  a  difference  in  the  essentials  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul  is  unfounded  and  un- 
proven  and  untrue.  We  have  not  two  discordant  gospels  in 
our  New  Testament.  We  have  but  one  gospel.  The  gospel 
of  Jesus  is  the  gospel  of  Paul.  With  minor  differences 
there  is  essential  and  fundamental  unity  in  all  the  writings 
in  our  New  Testament  canon.  It  would  be  easy  to  show 
this  in  detail.  It  is  at  the  point  of  the  apostolic  doctrine  of 
redemption  that  the  critics  take  most  radical  exception. 
All  other  differences  are  subsidiary  to  this,  and  what  does 
their  contention  amount  to  here?  It  means  that  Paul  and 
the  apostles  taught  an  objective  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
and  Jesus  never  did.  That  means  that  they  proclaimed  to 
the  world  an  interpretation  of  his  death  which  he  never  had 
sanctioned  and  which,  therefore,  they  must  have  known  to 
be  different  from  his  own.  Could  they  have  done  that  as 
honest  men?  Is  it  conceivable  that  the  men  whom  Jesus 
had  trained  for  three  years  could  have  been  utterly  mis- 
taken as  to  his  thought  upon  this  most  important  feature  of 
their  creed?  Let  him  believe  that  who  can!  We  confess 
that  our  faith  is  not  equal  to  the  strain  of  concluding  that 


THE  EPISTLES  129 

the  apostles  were  either  inconceivably  stupid  or  irretrievably 
disloyal  to  their  Lord.  That  is  what  this  contention  of  a 
radical  or  essential  difference  of  teaching  means. 

(2)  There  is  a  difference  between  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
and  the  preaching  of  Paul.  That  is  apparent  to  all,  and  no 
one  denies  it.  The  difference,  however,  is  only  one  of 
degree  and  not  of  kind.  Jesus  never  formulated  his  prin- 
ciples into  a  system.  The  founders  of  Buddhism  and 
Mohammedanism  left  in  writing  a  complete  body  of 
teaching,  but  the  founder  of  Christianity  never  wrote 
anything  for  preservation  by  his  disciples  nor  dictated 
any  creed  or  philosophy  or  theology  for  their  guid- 
ance in  the  days  after  his  death.  He  enunciated  germinal 
principles.  In  conversations  and  in  more  formal  discourses 
he  gave  them  seed  thoughts.  His  fundamental  conceptions 
are  few  in  number  and  unrelated  to  each  other  in  any  logical 
or  systematic  form.  Neither  in  ethics  nor  in  civic  or  social 
duties  nor  in  church  affairs  nor  in  religious  requirements 
did  he  set  forth  his  teachings  in  any  precise  or  final  formu- 
lation. He  never  intimates  that  his  teaching  is  complete. 
On  the  contrary,  he  said  to  his  disciples  that  he  had  many 
things  to  tell  them  for  which  they  were  not  yet  prepared, 
and  he  promised  them  the  Spirit's  coming,  that  he  might 
guide  them  into  the  further  truth.  Were  these  promises  of 
additional  revelations  never  fulfilled?  We  think  they  were 
in  the  case  of  Paul  and  the  other  New  Testament  writers. 
They  took  the  germinal  ideas  of  Jesus  and  gave  them  fuller 
development. 

That  work  had  to  be  done  and  they  ought  to  have  done  it. 
There  is  nothing  absolutely  new  in  their  writings.  Augus- 
tine said  that  in  the  Old  Testament  the  New  Testament  was 
latent  and  in  the  New  Testament  the  Old  Testament  was 
patent.  We  may  paraphrase  his  statement  and  say,  "Epistula 
latet  in  Evangelio,  Evangclium  patet  in  Epistula,"  for  all 
of  Paul's  theology  is  latent  in  Christ's  teaching,  and  all  of 
Christ's  teaching  is  patent  in  Paul's  epistles.    Jesus  was  no 


130  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

systematic  theologian ;  but  Christianity  had  to  have  a  theol- 
ogy. It  could  not  have  maintained  itself  until  now  without 
one.  As  heretics  distorted  the  faith  and  antagonists  flung 
themselves  upon  it,  some  trained  intellect  had  to  stand  in 
the  breach  and  prove  to  all  comers  that  the  Christian  faith 
was  well  founded,  a  reasonable  as  well  as  a  spiritual  serv- 
ice. There  was  one  man  in  the  early  church  who  faced 
all  the  facts  contained  in  the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus  as 
a  completed  whole  and  from  the  facts  deduced  a  faith 
which  was  a  system  of  correlated  doctrines  and  beliefs. 
That  was  the  apostle  Paul.  The  other  apostles  had  come 
gradually  to  their  faith  as  the  facts  developed  before  their 
eyes  through  the  months  and  the  years,  and  they  probably 
did  not  have  the  school  training  and  the  world  experience 
which  would  enable  them  to  see  the  faith  steadily  and  see  it 
whole  until  Paul  had  formulated  it  for  them.  They  all 
agreed  upon  the  system  which  Paul  formulated  as  properly 
representing  the  teaching  of  the  Master,  but  Paul  was  the 
originator  and  creator.  They  recognized  in  him  the  man 
adequate  to  the  needed  task. 

These  men  who  are  crying  for  a  return  to  a  religion  with- 
out theology  are  like  those  who  would  urge  a  return  to  the 
life  of  primitive  man  without  any  of  the  aids  and  the  neces- 
sities of  modern  civilization.  You  cannot  go  back  from 
the  blossom  to  the  bud.  You  cannot  go  back  from  the  blade 
and  the  full  corn  in  the  ear  to  the  seed.  Christianity  can  no 
more  do  without  a  theology  than  a  man  can  dispense  with 
his  own  skeleton.  As  long  as  he  is  alive  he  cannot  do  with- 
out it.  We  would  detract  no  whit  from  the  importance  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  but  if  the  Son  of  God  has  come 
to  this  earth  and  has  lived  a  sinless  life  and  has  died  for 
our  redemption  and  has  been  resurrected  unto  the  crowning 
with  eternal  glory  and  power,  then  in  that  trinity  of  facts — 
Incarnation,  Redemption,  Resurrection — we  have  matters 
of  profounder  interest  to  the  race  than  anything  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  contains.     If  we  cannot  put  these  doctrines 


THE  EPISTLES  131 

and  these  facts  behind  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  we  have  in 
that  teaching  only  the  charming  intuitions  of  a  pious  provin- 
cial, with  no  more  authority  in  them  than  there  is  in  the 
ethics  of  Epictetus  and  the  speculations  of  Socrates. 

We  sympathize  fully  with  Josiah  Royce  when  he  says : 
"Yet,  as  a  student  of  philosophy,  coming  in  no  partisan 
spirit,  I  must  insist  that  this  reduction  of  what  is  vital  in 
Christianity  to  the  so-called  pure  gospel  of  Christ,  as  he 
preached  it  and  as  it  is  recorded  in  the  body  of  the  presum- 
ably authentic  sayings  and  parables,  is  profoundly  unsatis- 
factory. .  .  .  For  one  thing,  Christ  can  hardly  be  supposed 
to  have  regarded  his  most  authentically  reported  sayings  as 
containing  the  whole  of  his  message,  or  as  embodying  the 
whole  of  his  mission.  For,  if  he  had  so  viewed  the  matter, 
the  Messianic  tragedy  in  which  his  lifework  culminated 
would  have  been  needless  and  unintelligible.  For  the  rest, 
the  doctrine  that  he  taught  is,  as  it  stands,  essentially  incom- 
plete. It  is  not  a  rounded  whole.  It  looks  beyond  itself  for 
a  completion."  13S  That  is  the  way  it  seems  to  one  of  our 
leading  philosophers,  and  that  is  the  way  it  seems  to  us. 

What  Jesus  taught  in  the  days  of  his  earthly  ministry  did 
not  represent  to  him  the  consummation  of  his  teaching. 
It  was  all  true,  but  it  was  not  the  whole  of  the  truth.  He 
himself  was  never  content  with  it.  He  always  suggested 
the  possibility  and  the  necessity  of  further  revelation. 
Canon  Bernard  says,  in  speaking  of  those  who  regard  the 
apostolic  writings  "as  only  Petrine,  Pauline,  or  Alexan- 
drian versions  of  the  Christian  doctrine,  interesting  records 
of  the  views  of  individuals  or  schools  of  opinion  concerning 
the  salvation  which  Jesus  began  to  speak,"  "No,  the  words 
of  our  Lord  are  not  honored  (as  these  men  seem  to  think) 
by  being  thus  isolated ;  for  it  is  an  isolation  which  separates 
them  from  other  words  which  are  also  his  own  words  given 
by  him  in  that  day  when  he  no  longer  spake  in  proverbs,  but 

133  Royce,  What  Is  Vital  in  Christianity,  in  William  James,  and 
Other  Essays,  pp.  140,  141. 


132  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

showed  his  servants  plainly  of  the  Father."  139  That  leads 
us  to  another  step  in  this  discussion. 

(3)  All  of  our  New  Testament  books  were  written  by  men 
who  were  living  on  the  postpentecostal  plane  of  experience. 
That  is  as  true  of  the  Gospels  as  it  is  of  the  epistles.  After 
the  pouring  out  of  the  Spirit  at  Pentecost  the  apostles  and 
the  church  had  new  insight  into  the  nature  and  purpose 
of  the  ministry  of  their  Lord.  Their  characters  were 
changed.  Their  theology  was  improved.  Luke  says  that  in 
the  Gospel  he  had  written  of  the  things  which  Jesus  began 
to  do  and  to  teach.140  In  the  book  of  Acts  he  records  what 
Jesus  continued  to  do  and  to  teach.  There  is  continuous 
development  in  the  teaching,  and  it  is  all  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  By  as  much  as  the  seating  of  Jesus  on  the  right- 
hand  of  the  throne  gave  him  power  and  majesty  surpassing 
that  of  the  days  of  his  humiliation  in  the  flesh,  by  so  much 
does  the  spiritual  insight  of  his  disciples  seem  to  be  clarified 
and  increased.  The  most  astonishing  thing  about  it  all  is 
their  essential  agreement  in  all  the  fundamentals  of  their 
preaching.  They  came  to  be  of  one  mind  in  the  Lord,  and 
we  are  disposed  to  believe  that  their  mind  was  the  mind  of 
Christ. 

That  explains  the  underlying  unity  of  our  New  Testa- 
ment. All  of  the  authors  of  our  New  Testament  books  were 
led  by  the  Spirit  and  they  were  led  into  the  truth,  and  it 
followed  that  they  were  led  into  the  same  truth.  What 
bearing  has  this  upon  Paul  and  the  authority  of  Paul  in 
his  epistles?  It  has  just  this  bearing,  that  all  of  the  apos- 
tles and  of  the  early  teachers  and  leaders  of  the  Christian 
Church,  Peter,  James,  John,  Apollos,  Barnabas,  Philip,  Silas 
and  the  rest,  believed  that  the  gospel  of  Paul  was  the  gospel 
of  Jesus.  They  never  thought  of  impeaching  Paul's  ortho- 
doxy. They  may  have  differed  with  him  on  matters  of 
administration,  but  they  never  doubted  his  Christianity.     It 

us  Progress  of  Doctrine,  p.  87. 
140  Acts  1.  1. 


THE  EPISTLES  133 

is  the  tendency  in  our  day  to  call  them  all  Pauline  disciples 
and  to  trace  the  Pauline  influence  in  their  writings.  That 
tendency  bears  its  testimony  to  the  fact  that  there  is  one 
spirit  informing  them  all,  and  that  is  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost, 
the  Spirit  promised  by  the  Master  to  teach  them  all  things 
and  to  lead  them  into  the  final  truth. 

(4)  Paul's  gospel,  as  we  have  seen,  took  possession  of  the 
church  in  the  beginning  and  has  held  possession  in  the 
church  ever  since.  If  the  gospel  of  Jesus  was  different, 
what  became  of  it?  Christianity  has  believed  through  all 
the  ages  that  there  was  no  separation  between  the  two.  It 
would  need  very  strong  evidence  indeed  to  convince  us  that 
the  church  had  been  mistaken  on  such  a  vital  point  through 
all  its  history.  What  happened  to  the  gospel  of  Jesus?  Did 
it  disappear  without  leaving  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the 
placid  pool  of  Christian  thought?  Did  it  not  have  a  single 
representative  to  write  or  speak  in  its  behalf?  Did  all  of 
the  devoted  disciples  of  Jesus  who  were  ready  to  prove 
their  loyalty  to  him  through  persecution  and  martyrdom, 
if  need  be,  nevertheless  forsake  his  teaching  and  betray  his 
cause  and  unanimously  follow  after  an  upstart  adventurer 
such  as  some  of  the  critics  would  have  us  believe  Paul  to 
be?  The  apostles  thought  that  Paul  and  Jesus  were  at  one. 
Is  it  credible  that  they  could  be  mistaken?  If  they  were 
mistaken,  and  we  are  dependent  wholly  upon  them  for  all 
that  we  know  of  the  teaching  and  preaching  of  Jesus,  how 
can  any  modern  critics  rediscover  for  us  after  the  lapse 
of  all  these  centuries  the  simon  pure  gospel  of  Jesus,  which, 
according  to  them,  has  disappeared  totally  since  the  advent 
of  Paul?  It  would  entail  a  degree  of  inspiration  and  even 
of  infallibility  in  the  critics  which  we  would  prefer  to 
ascribe  to  the  primitive  apostles,  if  we  must  choose  between 
the  two. 

(5)  Paul  claimed  that  he  received  his  gospel  from  the 
Lord  by  direct  and  special  revelation.  "I  make  known 
to  you,  brethren,  as  touching  the  gospel  which  was  preached 


134  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

by  me,  that  it  is  not  after  man.  For  neither  did  I  receive  it 
from  man,  nor  was  I  taught  it,  but  it  came  to  me  through 
revelation  of  Jesus  Christ."  141  His  most  radical  critics 
are  ready  to  acknowledge  that  Paul  was  a  sincere  man. 
They  believe  that  he  believed  in  his  inward  and  authori- 
tative illumination.  So  did  the  apostles.  The  early  church 
accepted  Paul's  authority,  and  it  has  approved  itself  through 
all  the  centuries  since.  It  is  too  late  now  to  drag  Paul  down 
from  the  place  to  which  Christ  has  exalted  him. 

(6)  The  best  way  to  get  "back  to  Christ"  is  to  get  back 
of  the  Gospels  to  this  earlier  gospel  literature.  The  only 
way  to  get  back  to  Christ  is  through  the  epistles  of  Paul. 
The  best  equipment  for  anyone  who  desires  to  present 
Christian  truth  to-day  is  the  mastery  of  the  gospel  of  the 
apostle  Paul.  "We  may  find  in  Paul's  writings  arguments 
which,  however  convincing  to  the  Jew,  are  not  convincing 
to  us;  we  may  prefer  his  experimental  and  ethical  to  his 
doctrinal  teaching;  some  estimable  people  can  accept  him 
only  when  they  have  purged  him  of  his  Calvinism ;  others 
shut  their  eyes  to  this  or  that  which  seems  to  them  a  blot 
in  his  writings ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  to  this  man 
we  owe  our  Christianity.  It  was  he  who  disengaged  from 
the  dying  body  of  Judaism  the  newborn  religion  and  held  it 
aloft  in  the  eye  of  the  world  as  the  true  heir  to  universal 
empire.  It  was  he  whose  piercing  intellect  and  keen  moral 
discernment  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  this  new  thing, 
and  saw  in  it  a  force  to  conquer  the  world  and  to  rid  men 
of  all  bondage  and  evil  of  every  kind.  It  was  he  who 
applied  to  the  whole  range  of  human  life  and  duty  the  inex- 
haustible ethical  force  which  lay  in  Christ  and  thus  lifted 
at  one  effort  the  heathen  world  to  a  new  level  of  morality. 
I  [e  was  the  first  to  show  the  superiority  of  love  to  law,  and 
to  point  out  how  God  trusted  to  love,  and  to  summon  men 
to  meet  the  trust  God  thus  reposed  in  them.     We  cannot 

"'Gal.  i.  ii,  12. 


THE  EPISTLES  135 

measure  Paul's  greatness,  because  the  light  he  himself  has 
shed  has  made  it  impossible  for  us  to  put  ourselves  back  in 
imagination  into  the  darkness  through  which  he  had  to  find 
his  way.  We  can  measure  but  dimly  the  strength  that  was 
required  to  grasp  as  he  grasped  the  significance  of  God's 
manifestation  in  the  flesh."  142 

The  teachings  of  Paul  are  the  teachings  of  Jesus  more 
fully  developed  and  more  clearly  revealed.  That  is  the 
relation  between  the  two.  We  agree  with  Kaftan  that  the 
ttqCoiov  xpevdog  of  this  modern  criticism  is  the  attempt  to 
separate  between  Paul  and  Jesus,  and  he  is  right  in  say- 
ing that  the  greatest  hours  in  the  spiritual  history  of  Chris- 
tianity have  been  those  in  which  Paul  became  a  living 
power  in  the  church,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  to-day  a  new 
epoch  will  be  introduced  through  exactly  the  opposite,  the 
relegating  of  Paul  to  the  lumber-room  of  theology.143 
Renan  prophesied  that  Paul  was  now  coming  to  the  end  of 
his  reign.  Matthew  Arnold  answered  that  Paul  would  arise 
out  of  any  tomb  in  which  anyone  might  bury  him  to  edify 
the  church  of  the  future  ages  in  even  fuller  measure  than 
he  had  the  church  of  the  past. 

Deissmann  concludes  that  "the  modern  condemnations 
of  the  apostle  as  an  obscurantist  who  corrupted  the  simple 
gospel  of  the  Nazarene  with  harsh  and  difficult  dogmas  are 
the  dregs  of  doctrinaire  study  of  Paul,  mostly  in  the  tired 
brains  of  gifted  amateurs."  144  We  need  not  be  so  severe 
in  our  judgment.  Doubtless  many  earnest  and  thoughtful 
Christians  have  hoped  to  get  back  to  Christ  in  a  fuller  and 
more  satisfactory  measure  by  the  discarding  of  metaphysics 
and  theology  for  the  simplicity  which  is  in  Jesus.  It  is  a 
false  scent.  Experience  has  proven  that  those  who  begin 
with  the  belittling  of  Paul  end  up  with  a  lesser  Christ.  Paul 
has  been  a  safe  guide  in  the  past.     We  can  trust  him  now 

142  Marcus  Dods,  Commentary  on  First  Corinthians,  p.  68. 

143  Kaftan,  Jesus  und  Paulus,  S.  72,  74. 

144  Saint  Paul,  p.  4. 


r36  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

to  lead  the  church  on  into  the  realization  of  some  of  his 
grander  ideals.  He  points  the  way  toward  a  fraternity  of 
the  nations  and  a  unity  of  Christendom  we  have  not  seen 
as  yet.  He  foretells  the  ultimate  universal  triumph  of 
the  church,  and  the  evolution  of  human  society  into  the 
single  and  eternal  kingdom  of  God.  We  follow  on,  assured 
that  as  we  follow  Paul  we  follow  Christ. 

We  have  attempted  to  visualize  the  apostle  Paul  and  to 
get  some  conception  of  his  personal  preparation  for  his 
work,  his  personal  appearance,  and  his  personal  character- 
istics. We  have  taken  a  general  view  of  Paul's  epistles  and 
have  come  to  some  conclusions  concerning  their  form,  their 
style,  and  their  value.  We  are  ready  now  to  proceed  to  the 
investigation  of  the  Pauline  epistles  in  their  chronological 
order  and  we  shall  expect  the  detailed  survey  of  the  indi- 
vidual epistles  to  give  us  further  insight  into  the  character 
of  the  man  as  they  further  illustrate  the  general  principles 
arrived  at  in  our  preliminary  study. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE  THESSALONIANS 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE  THESSALONIANS 

I.  Thessalonica 

In  the  first  Christian  century  Thessalonica  was  the  chief 
city  of  Macedonia.  It  was  a  seaport  city  with  about  two 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  It  lay  at  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  Thermaic  Gulf,  the  most  magnificent  of  the 
many  bays  on  the  eastern  shores  of  Greece.  With  the  blue 
waters  of  the  ^Egean  Sea  rippling  at  its  feet,  its  houses 
and  its  streets  rose  over  gently  flowing  terraces  to  the 
citadel  with  its  imposing  fortifications.  Back  of  it  stood 
Mount  Olympus,  the  fabled  home  of  the  gods  of  Greece, 
snow-capped  and  resplendent  as  a  royal  palace  high  in  air. 
When  Cicero  was  exiled  from  Rome  he  lived  here  in  Thes- 
salonica for  seven  months  with  Plancius  the  quaestor,  and 
he  tells  us  that  he  looked  for  the  gods  on  Mount  Olympus, 
but  found  there  only  ice  and  snow.1  Through  the  city  of 
Thessalonica  from  east  to  west  ran  the  great  Egnatian  high- 
way which  connected  the  imperial  city  of  Rome  with  the 
Orient.  It  was  made  of  blocks  of  marble  and  was  one  of 
the  triumphs  of  ancient  engineering. 

Thessalonica  was  thus  a  center  of  commerce  by  land  and 
by  sea.  It  was  called  ''the  mother  of  all  Macedonia."  It 
was  at  the  height  of  its  prosperity  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  but  it  had  been  a  city  of  importance  for  more 
than  four  hundred  years.  The  ancient  name  of  the  city 
was  Therma,  given  it  because  of  the  hot  springs  in  the 
neighborhood.  The  most  important  event  in  its  ancient  his- 
tory was  its  occupation  by  the  Athenians  in  the  Pelopon- 

1  Orat.  pro  Plane.  41. 

139 


140  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

nesian  war  in  B.  C.  421.  They  left  it  desolate  and  it  was 
not  rebuilt  for  almost  a  century.  In  B.  C.  315  Cassander 
restored  it  and  gave  it  the  new  name  "Thessalonica,"  the 
name  of  his  wife,  who  was  the  daughter  of  Philip  of  Mace- 
don  and  the  stepsister  of  Alexander  the  Great.  After  the 
battle  of  Pydna  in  B.  C.  168  it  was  surrendered  to  the 
Romans,  and  they  made  it  the  capital  of  Macedonia 
Secunda  and  finally  of  the  whole  province  of  Macedonia. 
In  B.  C.  42  Antony  and  Augustus  made  it  a  free  city.  It 
was  the  residence  of  a  Roman  proconsul  and  had  the 
privilege  of  electing  its  own  magistrates,  who  were  called 
by  the  unusual  name  of  politarchs,  or  rulers,  of  the  city. 
It  had  only  two  commercial  rivals  on  the  yEgean  Sea — 
Corinth  to  the  south  and  Ephesus  on  the  opposite  shore. 
It  was  the  most  populous  city  in  all  Macedonia,  and,  like 
all  other  large  and  prosperous  cities  in  the  empire  at  this 
time,  it  had  a  proportion  of  Jewish  citizens  and  they  had 
a  synagogue. 

II.  The  Greatest  Event  in  the  History  of 
Thessalonica 

About  the  middle  of  the  first  Christian  century  the  first 
official  representatives  of  the  Christian  faith  entered  Thes- 
salonica. There  were  three  of  them.  They  were  travel- 
ing on  foot  and  they  had  come  directly  from  Philippi. 
There  the  two  older  men  had  been  scourged  and  imprisoned, 
and  the  chief  magistrates  had  besought  them  to  leave  the 
town.  With  their  younger  companion  they  had  trudged  off 
on  the  highway  to  the  capital  of  that  district,  the  seaport 
town  of  Amphipolis,  and  then  without  tarrying  they  had 
turned  inland  and  gone  on  to  the  large  city  of  Apollonia, 
and  then  on  and  on  for  a  journey  of  nearly  a  hundred  miles 
in  all  to  Thessalonica.  The  three  men  were  named  Paul, 
Silas,  and  Timothy.  Paul  was  the  leader  and  he  had  a 
habit  of  making  his  way  to  the  great  centers  of  commerce 
and  human  activity.    This  was  his  first  trip  to  Europe.    He 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  141 

had  entered  it  by  way  of  Macedonia,  and  the  greatest  city 
of  Macedonia  had  been  his  goal  from  the  first.  He  liked 
large  cities.  He  had  been  city  bred  and  he  never  felt  much 
at  home  until  he  got  into  a  great  city.  This  walk  of  a 
hundred  miles  from  Philippi  to  Thessalonica  was  through 
beautiful  scenery  and  along  a  splendid  road,  but  Paul  had 
no  eye  for  natural  beauty,  and  country  landscapes  never 
appealed  to  him.  His  limbs  were  stiff  from  being  fastened 
in  the  prison  stocks  at  Philippi,  and  his  back  was  sore  and 
raw  from  the  scourging  he  had  received  there.  Some  men 
would  have  tarried  in  some  quiet  and  secluded  spot  until 
their  wounds  were  healed  at  least.  Paul  had  no  thought 
of  tarrying  anywhere  except  in  a  city,  and  he  had  a  work 
to  do  which  allowed  of  no  delay.  His  back  would  heal  just 
as  quickly  if  he  were  about  that  work  as  if  he  were  idle. 
So  he  hastened  on. 

No  one  welcomed  them  into  Thessalonica.  The  proud 
city  had  seen  triumphal  processions  of  conquering  generals 
file  into  its  streets,  and  all  its  citizens  had  turned  out  to 
swell  the  acclaiming  throng;  but  these  men  surely  did  not 
appear  to  be  conquerors.  They  were  Jews,  to  begin  with ; 
they  belonged  to  a  despised  race.  Then  they  were  fugitives, 
just  out  of  prison,  dusty  and  forlorn.  They  evidently 
were  poor  men,  wandering  vagabonds  in  search  of  a  job. 
They  were  greeted  with  suspicious  glances,  and  they  looked 
for  the  Jewish  community  before  they  found  a  friendly 
face.  The  first  thing  they  had  to  do  was  to  find  a  place 
where  they  might  lodge  for  a  time,  and  then  it  seems  that 
the  second  necessity  pressing  hard  upon  them  was  that  of 
finding  employment  and  the  assured  income  it  would  bring. 
We  are  told  that  a  famine  was  raging  in  the  Roman  empire 
at  this  time  and  that  the  prices  of  food  and  the  necessaries 
of  life  had  risen  to  most  exorbitant  figures.  The  staple 
trade  in  Thessalonica  was  the  manufacture  of  coarse  cloth 
for  tents.  It  has  remained  one  of  the  chief  businesses  of 
the  city  to  the  present  day.    A  modern  traveler  tells  us  that 


142  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

"the  sound  that  follows  the  ear  as  one  walks  through  the 
streets  to-day  is  the  wheezing  and  straining  vibration  of 
the  loom  and  the  pendulum-like  click  of  the  regular  and 
ceaseless  shuttle."  2 

Paul  was  a  tentmaker  by  trade  and  as  he  walked  up  and 
down  these  factory  streets  and  heard  the  sound  of  the 
shuttles  and  looms  he  asked  for  employment  again  and 
again.  Having  found  it,  the  three  men  went  to  work.  The 
remuneration  was  small,  and  they  could  not  make  expenses ; 
but  they  worked  hard  both  night  and  day,3  and  twice  they 
received  some  financial  aid  from  the  friends  they  had  left 
behind  them  at  Philippi.4  In  this  way,  working  before 
daylight  and  long  after  nightfall,  they  managed  to  make 
ends  meet,  to  pay  all  their  bills,  and  to  be  independent. 
When  the  Sabbath  came  Paul  appeared  in  the  Jewish  syn- 
agogue and,  as  his  custom  was,  he  preached  to  them  the 
gospel  of  the  crucified  Jesus  as  the  risen  Christ.  Through 
three  weeks  he  was  permitted  to  continue  this  reasoning  in 
the  synagogue,  and  some  were  persuaded  that  he  proclaimed 
the  truth.  But  most  of  the  Jews  felt  about  this  doctrine 
of  a  crucified  Christ  just  as  Paul  himself  had  felt  before 
the  Damascus  vision,  and  they  decided  that  such  a  bias 
phemy  ought  to  have  no  countenance  from  them  and  that 
its  adherents  ought  to  be  persecuted  and  driven  out  of  the 
community. 

After  three  weeks  the  synagogue  was  closed  against  Paul, 
and  his  further  missionary  ministry  was  carried  on  in 
private  homes  and  in  individual  interviews.  How  long 
this  lasted  we  cannot  tell,  but  probably  for  some  months. 
A  Christian  church  was  organized  which  seems  to  have 
made  its  headquarters  in  the  house  of  Jason.  Of  course 
they  were  not  many  in  number.  There  had  been  no  time 
for  even  so  indefatigable  an  evangelist  as  Taul  to  gather 

2  Dods,  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  p.  1 53. 
»  1  Thess.  2.  9. 
♦Phil.  4.  16. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  143 

any  large  number  of  converts  about  him.  They  were  all 
the  product  of  personal  evangelism.  Paul  had  talked  with 
each  one  of  them,  as  a  father  with  his  children.5  Most  of 
them  were  Gentiles.  6  The  large  majority  of  them  belonged 
to  the  working  class,  the  people  with  whom  Paul  had  been 
associating  in  his  daily  labor.7  It  was  a  marvel  that  three 
strangers  could  enter  a  heathen  city  and  in  a  single  summer 
season  could  gather  even  a  small  company  of  artisans  about 
them  as  the  devoted  adherents  of  a  new  and  unpopular  and 
persecuted  faith.  They  had  to  do  it  in  the  face  of  the 
violent  opposition  of  all  their  own  countrymen  and  in  the 
face  of  the  heathenism  dominant  here  for  centuries.  The 
first  missionaries  on  a  foreign  soil  usually  expect  >o  spend 
months  in  preparation  for  the  reaping  of  a  spiritual  harvest. 
They  do  not  expect  to  enter  any  virgin  territory,  where 
their  form  of  faith  never  has  been  heard  in  public  preach- 
ing and  where  all  the  religious  teaching  of  the  centuries 
has  been  of  a  radically  different  character,  and  found  a 
church  in  the  first  six  months.  Paul  seems  to  have  expected 
just  such  a  result  from  his  preaching. 

Everything  seemed  to  be  against  him — his  appearance, 
his  poverty,  his  unpopularity,  his  astounding  and  confound- 
ing doctrine  and  prophecy.  No  miracles  were  wrought  here 
in  Thessalonica,  as  far  as  we  know.  There  was  nothing 
to  create  a  sensation  and  to  direct  attention  to  these  men 
except  the  matter  of  their  preaching  and  the  manner  of  their 
life.  The  one  great  marvel  of  this  Thessalonian  ministry 
was  that  it  had  such  immediate  results  in  the  formation  of 
a  church  in  a  few  months!  How  did  it  happen?  The 
only  explanation  is  that  given  by  Paul  himself,  "Our  gospel 
came  not  unto  you  in  word  only,  but  also  in  power,  and  in 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  in  much  assurance;  even  as  ye  know 
what  manner  of  men  we  showed  ourselves  toward  you  for 

6 1  Thess.  2.  11. 
?  1  Thess.  1.9,  10. 
7  1  Thess.  4.  11. 


144  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

your  sake."  8  Integrity  of  personality,  assurance  of  faith, 
spiritual  power  in  life  and  in  preaching — these  things 
accomplished  wonders  in  those  days,  as  they  have  accom- 
plished wonders  ever  since.  Through  the  whole  city  people 
began  to  inquire  who  these  men  were.  The  news  concern- 
ing the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  was  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth  and  the  rapid  spread  through  all  Palestine  and  Asia 
Minor  of  this  new  faith  in  a  Crucified  One  became  generally 
known. 

As  the  success  of  these  missionaries  in  making  converts  in 
Thessalonica  was  noised  abroad  the  Jews  were  moved 
with  jealousy.  They  had  been  living  here  in  Thessalonica, 
some  of  them,  for  years  and  years  and  they  had  not  suc- 
ceeded in  making  any  considerable  number  of  the  Gentiles 
into  Jews.  Why  should  these  three  men  come  into  the  city 
and  in  a  very  few  months  attract  some  scores  of  Gentiles 
to  what  seemed  to  them  a  gross  perversion  of  the  Jewish 
faith?  They  ought  to  be  suppressed  immediately.  So  they 
incited  a  mob  which  assaulted  the  house  of  Jason  and 
haled  him  and  certain  of  his  friends  before  the  politarchs. 
There  Jason  was  compelled  to  give  security  that  the  Chris- 
tian missionaries  would  leave  the  city  at  once.  On  this 
condition  the  prisoners  were  released,  and  that  night  Paul 
and  Silas  and  Timothy  were  smuggled  out  of  the  city  and 
sent  on  their  way  to  Bercea. 

They  had  come  into  the  city  by  daylight.  They  went 
out  under  cover  of  the  darkness,  as  if  their  deeds  had  been 
evil.  Their  assailants  had  said,  "These  men  have  turned 
the  world  upside  down ;"  9  and  that  was  true  in  a  certain 
sense.  They  were  revolutionists  of  the  most  radical  sort. 
Only,  they  were  turning  the  world  right  side  up ;  and  the 
Jews  in  Thessalonica  had  not  realized  that  fact.  The  Chris- 
tian centuries  have  proven  it  since.  Those  three  men  had 
founded  the  second  church  of  European  Christendom  here 

8 1  Thess.  i.  5. 

9  Acts  17.  6. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  145 

in  Thessalonica,  and  that  was  the  most  important  event  in 
the  whole  history  of  the  city.  We  know  the  city  to-day, 
not  because  of  anything  else  which  took  place  in  it,  but 
because  those  three  men  spent  some  three  months  or  more 
in  their  threefold  work  of  manual  labor  and  public  preach- 
ing and  individual  evangelism.  Thessalonica  has  been  of 
interest  in  world  history  because  it  became  the  seat  of  a 
Christian  church. 

III.  Later  History  of  the  City  and  Church 

A  very  short  time  after  Paul  left  the  city  of  Thessalonica 
he  wrote  back  to  the  members  of  the  church  there,  "From 
you  hath  sounded  forth,  [^ijxv™'  echoed  out,  trumpeted 
abroad]  the  word  of  the  Lord,  not  only  in  Macedonia  and 
Achaia,  but  in  every  place  your  faith  toward  God  is  gone 
forth."  10  In  every  place!  If  that  were  true  in  any  sense 
in  Paul's  own  day,  how  much  truer  has  it  become  since 
then !  One  can  trace  a  straight  line  of  blessing  from  that 
church  in  Thessalonica  to  any  spot  on  the  earth  where  the 
Christian  faith  has  been  preached.  The  third  century  was 
the  heroic  age  in  the  history  of  the  church  in  Thessalonica. 
In  that  century  the  two  brothers  Cyril  and  Methodius  went 
out  from  this  church  as  missionaries  and  they  evangelized 
the  Bohemians  and  the  Moravians.  Among  these  John 
Huss  appeared  later,  and  from  John  Huss  and  John  Wiclif, 
his  master,  the  later  reformers  caught  much  of  their  inspira- 
tion. Later  still  there  was  that  Moravian  community  at 
Herrnhut  which  sent  Peter  Bohler  to  London,  and  in  the 
Moravian  prayer  meeting  in  Aldersgate  Street  John 
Wesley's  heart  was  strangely  warmed.  Wesley  visited 
Herrnhut  and  afterward  organized  Methodism  largely  upon 
the  model  he  found  there.  He  sent  Francis  Asbury  to 
America  and  the  missionary  spirit  of  Cyril  and  Methodius 
was  reincarnated  in  the  itinerant  preachers  who  captured 

10 1  Thess.  1.  8. 


146  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  western  continent  for  Christ.  From  Cyril  and 
Methodius  to  the  Bohemians  and  the  Moravians,  from  John 
Huss  to  the  Reformation,  and  from  Count  Zinzendorf  to 
Methodism,  from  John  Wesley  to  Francis  Asbury,  from  the 
church  at  Thessalonica  to  the  spot  on  which  we  stand,  we 
find  that  Paul's  words  are  true  and  that  the  word  of  God 
hath  sounded  out  from  that  Christian  center  to  all  the  world 
and  we  ourselves  are  their  debtors. 

In  A.  D.  389  the  great  massacre  by  Theodosius  occurred 
in  the  city  of  Thessalonica.  In  904  it  was  captured  by  the 
Saracens  and  in  1185  it  was  recaptured  by  the  Normans 
under  Tancred.  Through  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  main 
bulwark  of  Christianity  against  the  Turks.  For  five  hun- 
dred years  the  Mohammedans  called  it  "the  orthodox 
city."  In  1430  the  Turks  took  it  again,  and  it  has  been  in 
their  possession  until  the  recent  Balkan  war.  In  1876 
there  was  an  outbreak  of  Turkish  fanaticism  in  this  city 
and  another  great  massacre  of  the  people  took  place  and 
the  arch  of  the  politarchs  was  destroyed.  The  modern 
name  of  the  city  is  Saloniki.  It  is  about  half  the  size  of 
the  city  which  Paul  visited.  Its  present  population  is  about 
seventy  thousand.  There  are  only  a  few  Christians  among 
them;  about  twenty  thousand  are  Jews,  and  the  majority 
are  Mohammedans. 

Paul  wrote  epistles  to  Ephesus,  Colossce,  and  Philippi, 
and  these  places  are  only  heaps  of  ruins  now.  Thessalonica 
is  a  flourishing  city  to-day;  but  its  streets  are  narrow  and 
filthy  and  many  of  its  houses  are  in  sad  need  of  repair.  It 
bears  evidence  on  every  hand  of  the  inefficiency  of  the 
recent  Moslem  rule.  The  Christian  Church  is  more  ruin- 
ous still.  It  has  had  a  noble  history.  It  produced  many 
learned  archbishops,  as  well  as  many  zealous  missionaries. 
It  had  many  splendid  Byzantine  churches,  all  of  which 
were  turned  into  mosques.  The  one  good  result  of  the 
Mohammedan  occupation  of  these  edifices  is  that  they 
have  been  well  preserved,  and  the  city  of  Thessalonica  has 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  147 

more  remains  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity  to-day  than  any 
other  city  in  Greece.  The  evidences  of  the  former  pros- 
perity of  this  famous  church  are  still  there.  We  trust,  now 
that  it  is  delivered  from  the  smothering  and  crushing 
incubus  of  Mohammedanism,  it  may  return  to  some  mea- 
sure of  its  primitive  purity  and  power. 

IV.  Occasion  of  the  First  Epistle 

Paul  and  his  two  companions  went  on  to  Beroea  when 
they  had  been  driven  out  of  Thessalonica,  and  then  on  to 
Athens.  They  could  not  forget  the  friends  they  had  made 
in  the  Macedonian  capital,  and  they  were  anxious  about 
them.  They  knew  something  of  the  temptations  and  trials 
to  which  the  new  converts  would  be  sure  to  be  exposed. 
Were  they  sufficiently  grounded  in  the  faith  to  stand  firm? 
Their  anxiety  grew  as  the  days  went  on  and  they  had  no 
word  from  them,  and  at  Athens  Paul  determined  to  send 
Timothy  back  to  see  how  things  were  going  and  to  bring 
a  report  to  him.  From  Athens  Paul  went  on  to  Corinth, 
and  it  was  at  Corinth  that  Timothy  found  him  upon  his 
return.     He  brought  an  encouraging  report. 

1.  He  told  Paul  that  the  little  band  of  Christians  was  still 
loyal  to  the  truth,  faithful  to  the  Lord,  obedient  to  the 
gospel,  and  anxious  for  the  return  of  the  missionaries. 
That  was  the  main  thing,  and  Paul's  heart  was  set  at  rest. 
However,  Timothy  had  other  things  to  report  which  were 
not  so  pleasing. 

2.  He  told  Paul  that  the  persecution  which  had  begun 
before  they  left  was  raging  still.  Both  Gentiles  and  Jews 
were  harassing  and  tormenting  the  Christians  at  every 
opportunity ;  but  the  Jews  were  the  worse  enemies,  now  as 
before.  It  took  a  sterling  quality  of  faith  to  endure  under 
such  continuous  testing. 

3.  The  Jews  had  been  active  especially  in  spreading  slan- 
derous rumors  against  Paul.  They  impugned  his  motives 
and  misinterpreted  his  conduct.     All  the  malice  of  which 


148  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

they  were  capable  was  shown  in  the  ingenuity  with  which 
they  manufactured  and  promulgated  these  canards. 

4.  The  teaching  of  the  apostle  concerning  the  second 
coming  of  the  Lord  had  been  misunderstood  b>  some,  and 
they  had  made  that  teaching  the  excuse  for  idleness  and  dis- 
orderliness  and  some  were  grieving  because  their  friends 
had  died  and  so  had  missed  the  sight  of  this  great  event. 

5.  There  were  a  few  who  evidenced  a  tendency  to  the 
misuse  of  spiritual  gifts  and  a  few  who  were  tempted  to 
return  to  heathen  impurities.  It  was  not  strange  that  it 
should  be  so.  The  marvel  was  that  so  many  stood  fast  in 
such  a  trying  situation. 

Paul  heard  Timothy's  report  and  sat  down  at  once  to 
write  a  letter  to  the  Thessalonians.  A  word  from  him 
might  encourage  them  and  help  them ;  and  he  would  send 
it  to  them  without  delay.11 

V.  Probable  Date  of  the  Epistle 

We  have  no  method  of  fixing  the  exact  date  of  the  first 
epistle.  The  evangelists  visited  Thessalonica  and  the 
church  was  founded  there  in  the  year,  and  probably  in  the 
summer  of  the  year,  A.  D.  52.  We  know  that  some  con- 
siderable time  had  elapsed  since  then. 

1.  There  must  have  been  time  for  Timothy  to  make  the 
trip  from  Athens  to  Thessalonica  and  the  return  trip  to 
Corinth.12 

2.  There  must  have  been  time  for  several  deaths  in  the 
circle  of  the  disciples  in  Thessalonica.13  These  deaths  had 
been  the  cause  of  much  discouragement  to  some  of  the 
survivors. 

3.  There  must  have  been  time  for  much  missionary  activ- 
ity on  the  part  of  the  church,  so  that  its  name  and  fame 
had  spread  through  Macedonia  and  Achaia  and  the  regions 

11  1  Thess.  3.  6. 

12  1  Thess.  3.  1-6. 

13  1  Thess.  4.  13. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  149 

beyond.14  We  know  that  Paul  spent  about  eighteen  months 
in  Corinth,15  and  that  both  the  First  and  the  Second 
Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  were  written  in  this  city  dur- 
ing this  time.  There  must  have  been  some  interval  between 
the  writing  of  the  first  and  the  second  epistle.  Cutting  off 
the  time  to  represent  this  interval  from  the  close  of  the 
stay  in  Corinth,  we  find  ourselves  shut  up  to  a  period  of 
about  six  months  in  which  the  first  epistle  must  have  been 
written.  That  period  cannot  begin  sooner  than  six  months 
after  Paul  had  left  Thessalonica  and  can  extend  to  not  more 
than  one  year  from  that  date.  We  decide,  therefore,  that 
this  epistle  was  written  in  the  first  half  of  the  year  A.  D.  53. 

VI.  Aim  of  the  Epistle 

Paul  wrote  (1)  to  encourage  them  with  his  commenda- 
tion and  comfort  them  in  their  persecution;  (2)  to 
strengthen  the  personal  bond  between  himself  and  the 
church;  (3)  to  break  all  the  bonds  between  the  church  and 
its  Jewish  and  Gentile  persecutors;  (4)  to  defend  himself 
against  the  charges  made  by  his  enemies;  (5)  to  make 
clearer  his  teaching  concerning  the  second  coming  of  the 
Lord;  (6)  to  assure  all  the  Christians  that  death  was  no 
loss  to  them  but  rather  a  gain.  The  sooner  death  came,  the 
sooner  they  entered  into  their  reward.  Whether  they  woke 
or  slept,  they  lived  with  their  Lord.16  When  they  died  they 
did  not  go  down  into  the  grave  nor  out  into  oblivion,  but 
up  into  the  heavenly  places  with  Christ.  Wherefore,  let 
them  comfort  themselves  with  these  words.17 

VII.  A  Noteworthy  Epistle 

1.  This  epistle  is  noteworthy  because  it  is  the  first  written 
by  the  apostle  Paul  of  which  we  have  any  record.  It  is  the 
first  epistle  which  has  been  preserved,  written  by  a  Chris- 
tian to  Christians,  if  we  except  the  brief  official  document 

14  1  Thess.  1.  7,  8.  16  1  Thess.  5.  10. 

15  Acts  18.  n.  »  I  Thess.  5.  11. 


150  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

sent  after  the  Jerusalem  council  to  the  church  at  Antioch.18 
Chronologically  it  is  the  first  of  the  New  Testament  books 
to  be  written.  It  marks  the  beginning  of  Christian  lit- 
erature. It  is  the  earliest  important  document  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Jesus  had  written  nothing.  The  twelve  apostles 
had  written  nothing.  Paul  is  the  pioneer  in  the  field  of 
Christian  authorship.  In  all  the  multitude  of  those  who 
have  followed  him  in  all  the  centuries  since  Paul  has  had 
no  superior.  It  is  to  be  questioned  whether  he  has  had 
even  a  single  peer.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians 
is  noteworthy  by  its  position,  leading  the  van  of  the  mighty 
host  of  tracts,  sermons,  epistles,  treatises,  and  books  with 
which  Christianity  has  enriched  the  world ;  and  its  intrinsic 
value  makes  it  worthy  of  that  leadership. 

2.  It  is  not  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Pauline  epistles; 
but  it  has  all  of  the  Pauline  characteristics  and  much  of 
the  Pauline  power.  There  is  one  outburst  against  the  Jews 
in  it.  These  Jews  "both  killed  the  Lord  Jesus  and  the 
prophets,  and  drove  us  out,  and  please  not  God,  and  are 
contrary  to  all  men ;  forbidding  us  to  speak  to  the  Gentiles 
that  they  may  be  saved ;  to  fill  up  their  sins  always :  but  the 
wrath  is  come  upon  them  to  the  uttermost."  19  They  had 
driven  Paul  out  of  Thessalonica  and  they  were  persecuting 
him  in  Corinth.  His  patience  with  them  seems  to  have  been 
about  exhausted  at  this  time.  No  Jew-baiter  could  have 
used  any  stronger  language  against  them  than  this.  Paul 
calls  them  murderers  of  the  Messias  and  the  prophets,  hate- 
ful to  God  and  hated  by  men,  sinners  up  to  the  limit,  cer- 
tain of  the  overwhelming  wrath  which  was  due  their 
unspeakable  transgression !  This  passage  is  the  only  one 
in  the  epistle  of  such  a  character.  As  a  whole  it  is  one  of 
the  most  gentle  written  by  Paul.  He  intends  it  for  com- 
fort and  encouragement.  He  is  proud  of  the  steadfastness 
of  these  Thessalonians  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  tell  them 


18  Acts  15.  23-29. 
19 1  Thcss.  2.  15,  16. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  151 

so.  "What  is  our  hope,  or  joy,  or  crown  of  glorying?  Are 
not  even  ye,  before  our  Lord  Jesus  at  his  coming?  For 
ye  are  our  glory  and  our  joy."  20  There  is  only  one  other 
letter  written  by  Paul  in  which  there  is  anything  like  the 
same  unreserved  cordiality  of  commendation.  That  was 
written  ten  years  later  to  the  other  Macedonian  church,  at 
Philippi.  The  three  Macedonian  epistles,  First  and  Second 
Thessalonians  and  Philippians,  are  simple  love  letters, 
written  out  of  great  affection  and  filled  with  protestations 
of  personal  solicitude  and  regard. 

3.  This  epistle  gives  us  a  sample  of  Paul's  preaching  to 
the  heathen  world.  We  have  a  summary  of  two  of  Paul's 
sermons  to  the  heathen  recorded  in  the  book  of  Acts,  the 
one  preached  at  Lystra21  and  the  other  at  Athens,22  but  this 
epistle  probably  gives  us  a  fuller  outline  of  Paul's  preaching 
to  the  Gentile  audiences  gathered  in  the  heathen  cities  than 
we  can  find  elsewhere.  He  could  not  have  made  much  use 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  in  addressing  people  who 
were  not  familiar  with  them ;  and  in  this  epistle  the  Old 
Testament  never  is  quoted  directly  and  it  never  is  appealed 
to  as  a  final  authority,  although  the  prophets  are  referred 
to  in  one  passage23  and  Old  Testament  language  either 
consciously  or  unconsciously  is  woven  into  Paul's  sentences 
again  and  again.24  He  does  not  present  Jesus  to  these 
people  as  the  Messiah,  but,  rather,  as  the  present  and  com- 
ing Judge  of  the  race.  He  does  not  indulge  in  any  lengthy 
arguments.  There  is  no  intricate  or  difficult  reasoning.  He 
does  not  dwell  much  upon  dogma  of  any  kind.  The  most 
of  his  exhortations  have  to  do  with  personal  and  practical 
matters.  Bruce  and  others  have  called  these  Epistles  to  the 
Thessalonians  "primer  epistles,"  because  they  had  so  little 
doctrinal  discussion  in  them;  but  that  is  not  a  good  title. 
There  is  little  doctrine  here,  but  what  doctrine  there  is  is 

20  1  Thess.  2.  19,  20.  M  1  Thess.  2.  15. 

21  Acts  14.  15-17.  M  1  Thess.  2.  16;    4.  5,  6,  8;  5.  8,  22. 
»  Acts  17.  22-31. 


152  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

not  primer  doctrine.  There  is  little  theology  here,  but  what 
theology  there  is  has  proven  as  perplexing  to  the  theologians 
as  any  to  be  found  in  the  Bible. 

4.  The  characteristic  theme  of  this  epistle  is  the  second 
coming  of  the  Lord.  Every  section  of  the  epistle  closes 
with  some  reference  to  it.  The  thought  of  it  underlies 
all  Paul  has  to  say.  This  hardly  can  be  considered  a  sub- 
ject for  the  primer  class. 

5.  The  apologetic  value  of  the  epistle  scarcely  can  be 
overrated.  As  the  earliest  written  record  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  it  bears  its  clear  witness  to  the  fundamentals 
more  fully  set  forth  in  the  later  literature.  The  deity  of 
Christ,  the  connection  between  his  death  and  our  salvation, 
his  resurrection  by  the  power  of  God,  the  personality  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Christian's  resurrection  with  Christ, 
the  Christian's  union  with  Christ,  the  second  coming  of  the 
Lord  to  destroy  his  enemies  and  to  reward  the  saints,  the 
duty  of  Christian  love  and  the  beauty  of  Christian  purity; 
all  of  these  are  in  the  first  New  Testament  epistle  and  first 
New  Testament  book. 

6.  The  epistle  is  of  value  for  the  picture  of  the  apostle 
Paul  which  we  find  in  its  pages.  We  see  him  as  the  earn- 
est missionary,  the  faithful  pastor,  and  the  apocalyptic  seer. 
He  is  well  worth  our  study  in  each  of  these  capacities,  and 
in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  we  have  an  original 
document  full  of  instructive  material  upon  these  things. 
As  a  single  example  let  us  look  at  that  passage  in  the 
second  chapter  in  which  Paul  describes  his  ministry 
among  them.25  It  ought  to  be  full  of  suggestion  to  every 
servant  of  Christ  and  men.  Pauline  success  can  be  attained 
and  maintained  only  in  the  reproduction  of  these  character- 
istics of  the  Pauline  ministry.  "Our  entering  in  unto  you 
.  .  .  hath  not  been  found  vain,"  2<i  Paul  says,  and  then  he 
proceeds  to  show  how  and  why  that  was  true. 

25  1  Thess.  2.  1-14. 
*■  1  Thess.  2.  I. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  153 

( 1 )  He  preached  with  boldness  increased  by  opposition.27 
"They  treated  us  shamefully  in  Philippi,  and  therefore  we 
waxed  bold  to  speak  unto  you  in  much  conflict.  We  have 
had  experience  in  these  things.  We  know  how  to  stand 
hard  knocks  by  this  time.  When  we  are  treated  badly  we 
do  not  think  of  quitting  the  work.  We  think  only  how 
much  easier  it  will  be  to  endure  these  things  a  second  time. 
Persecution  does  not  make  us  timid.  It  makes  us  bolder 
than  before.  Conflict  does  not  discourage  us.  It  only 
hardens  us  for  the  further  fray.  We  thrive  on  opposition. 
Are  there  many  enemies?  Then  there  is  need  of  greater 
zeal."  The  dauntless  spirit  of  the  apostle  Paul  speaks  in 
these  words.    Antagonism  bred  heroism  in  him. 

(2)  His  preaching  even  in  the  face  of  aggressive  hostility 
was  in  full  assurance  of  faith.28  There  was  no  question  in 
Paul's  mind  as  to  the  truth  of  what  he  had  to  proclaim. 
He  had  full  assurance  at  that  point.  He  never  preached 
his  doubts.  He  never  talked  of  things  of  which  he  him- 
self was  not  certain.  There  was  no  admixture  of  error 
in  his  exhortation.  He  had  the  truth,  and  the  whole  truth, 
and  nothing  but  the  truth,  and  he  was  ready  to  stake  his 
life  and  his  all  upon  it. 

(3)  He  claimed  for  his  preaching  that  it  was  character- 
ized by  purity  of  motive  and  speech.28  Christianity  was 
clean.  It  stood  in  opposition  to  all  the  uncleanness  of 
heathenism.  Its  doctrines  were  pure.  Its  life  was  pure. 
It  preached  and  practiced  purity  in  everything. 

(4)  Paul's  preaching  was  without  any  deception  in  it. 
Everything  was  open  and  above  board.  He  never  caught 
anybody  with  guile.  He  never  pursued  any  end  of  indirec- 
tion. He  never  economized  the  revelation  of  truth.  He 
preached  the  whole  gospel  without  mental  reservations. 
Every  part  of  it  was  for  everybody.  No  part  of  it  was  too 
good  for  anyone.     He  did  not  beat  about  the  bush.     He 

27  1  Thess.  2.  2. 
58  1  Thess.  2.  3. 


154  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

went  straight  at  the  heart  of  the  matter  in  hand.     There 
was  no  room  for  guile  in  such  preaching. 

(5)  Paul  never  flattered  anybody  in  his  preaching.29 
He  sought  for  the  approval  of  God  rather  than  the  approval 
of  men.  He  was  not  a  man  pleaser.  He  never  tried  to  tickle 
anybody's  ears  with  a  soft  message.  He  never  tried  to  curry 
anybody's  favor  by  shading  or  concealing  the  truth.  His 
object  was  not  to  attach  men  to  himself,  but  to  attract  men 
to  God.  He  opened  his  heart  to  God,  that  its  every  motive 
might  be  approved  by  him.  Pie  called  God  to  witness  that  he 
never  had  used  words  of  flattery  to  any  one.  He  might  have 
had  an  easier  time  of  it  if  he  had.  He  might  have  escaped 
much  persecution  if  he  had  had  an  oily  tongue  and  an 
ingratiating  manner.  He  might  have  had  a  comparatively 
pleasant  experience  wherever  he  went  if  he  had  made  it  the 
rule  of  his  life  never  to  offend  anyone,  always  to  say  pleasant 
things  to  everyone,  and  to  keep  on  good  terms  wTith  every- 
body. Paul  had  a  quite  different  ideal  in  his  ministry.  He 
did  not  think  it  his  duty  to  be  beloved  and  adored  by  all  his 
hearers.  He  did  not  try  to  develop  a  perfectly  fascinating 
personality.  He  was  not  a  dear,  sweet  man.  He  was  of  a 
different  type.  Instead  of  flattering  anybody  into  self-con- 
ceit he  flattened  out  all  self-conceit  by  proving  that  every 
man  was  a  sinner  and,  therefore,  that  he  came  far  short  of 
the  glory  made  possible  in  Christ. 

(6)  It  followed  that  there  was  no  self-seeking  in  Paul's 
ministry.30  He  did  not  ask  anybody  to  flatter  him.  He  did 
not  seek  any  glory  from  men.  He  did  not  care  for  com- 
mendation or  compensation  from  them.  He  did  not  make 
his  ministry  a  cloak  of  covetousness.  God  was  his  witness 
to  that.  He  was  not  seeking  a  salary ;  he  was  seeking  for 
souls.  He  was  not  out  after  money,  but  after  men.  He 
might  have  claimed  authority  as  an  apostle.  He  claimed 
only  a  hearing  as  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 

29  1  Thess.  2.  4,  5. 
3U  1  Thcss.  2.  5,  6. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  155 

(7)  Paul's  ministry  was  a  sympathetic  and  affectionate 
one.31  He  was  gentle  with  the  new  converts,  even  as  a 
nurse  is  gentle  with  her  own  children.  He  was  affection- 
ate as  a  mother,  willing  to  lay  down  her  own  life  for  those 
who  have  become  so  dear  to  her.  He  was  stern  enough 
in  dealing  with  sin  and  with  sinners.  He  was  an  apostle  of 
judgment  when  preaching  to  them.  Yet  when  a  soul  had 
truly  repented  and  had  come  into  the  beginnings  of  faith 
Paul  was  an  apostle  of  love  in  dealing  with  him.  He  could 
be  patient  and  gentle  and  sympathetic  and  affectionate  as 
a  mother  with  her  little  child.  If  it  needed  nursing,  he 
could  serve  as  a  nurse ;  if  it  needed  any  sacrifice,  he  would 
make  it  without  hesitation. 

(8)  Paul's  preaching  was  filled  zvith  labor  and  travails2 
He  worked  night  and  day  at  manual  labor  and  personal 
evangelism.  There  was  not  a  lazy  bone  in  him.  A  lazy 
man  has  no  place  in  the  Christian  ministry.  A  man  can 
be  lazy  in  the  Christian  ministry,  and  heap  up  condemna- 
tion for  his  soul !  Paul  did  what  he  could  and  held  up 
hands  clean  of  the  blood  of  all  men  before  God.  If  they 
were  lost,  it  was  not  his  fault.  It  was  not  through  his 
indifference  or  neglect.  It  was  not  because  he  had  been 
lazy  and  had  let  them  alone.  He  had  labored  for  them ; 
he  had  travailed  with  them.  He  had  spent  himself  in  their 
behalf.  He  had  given  full  proof  of  his  devotion  to  them. 
He  had  agonized  over  them.  He  knew  what  physical  and 
mental  and  spiritual  exhaustion  meant  in  his  ministry.  He 
grudged  nothing.  He  gave  everything.  His  time,  his 
strength,  his  sleep,  his  thought,  his  prayer,  his  constant 
endeavor,  the  night  and  the  day  were  given  to  the  further- 
ance of  his  mission  and  the  helping  and  saving  of  men. 
He  would  be  a  burden  to  no  one;  he  would  be  a  blessing 
to  all.  To  that  end  he  would  labor  till  his  strength  failed 
him.    He  would  travail  till  souls  were  newborn. 


31  1  Thess.  2.  7,  8. 

32  1  Thcss.  2.  9. 


156  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

(9)  Paul  declares  that  his  ministry  was  a  holy,  righteous, 
and  unblamable  one.33  He  claimed  to  be  a  holy  man.  He 
would  not  have  considered  himself  fit  for  the  ministry  if 
he  had  not  been.  Pie  had  no  false  modesty  in  giving  his 
testimony  on  that  point.  He  was  not  so  humble  as  to  say 
that  his  ministry  was  not  that  of  a  holy  man.  He  had 
behaved  himself  holily  and  righteously,  and  he  knew  it;  and 
they  knew  it.  He  appeals  to  their  own  knowledge  with  all 
assurance.  They  were  his  witnesses  that  his  conduct  had 
been  all  that  it  ought  to  have  been.  His  holiness  was  known 
and  read  of  all  men.  It  was  not  the  sort  of  holiness  which 
takes  itself  out  in  profession.  It  was  manifest  to  all  in 
righteous  action.  Paul  had  not  disgraced  the  Christian 
faith  in  any  way.  His  conduct  had  been  unblamable 
throughout.  He  was  as  confident  of  his  conduct  as  he  was 
of  his  creed.  His  practice  had  been  consistent  with  his 
preaching.  His  doctrine  had  been  demonstrated  in  his 
deeds. 

(10)  Paul  was  not  content  with  public  preaching  alone. 
His  ministry  was  filled  with  private  admonition  and  instruc- 
tion. "Ye  know  how  we  dealt  with  each  one  of  you,  as  a 
father  with  his  own  children,  exhorting  you,  and  encourag- 
ing you,  and  testifying."  34  Paul  came  to  close  quarters 
with  his  congregation.  He  was  not  satisfied  to  stand  off 
at  a  distance  and  talk  at  them.  He  got  into  their  homes 
and  talked  with  them  as  a  father  with  his  own  children. 
He  exhorted  them  according  to  their  individual  needs.  He 
encouraged  them  according  to  their  individual  difficulties. 
He  testified  that  the  grace  of  God  was  sufficient  to  meet 
each  case.  He  dealt  with  them  one  by  one.  It  was  slow 
work,  but  it  was  sure  work.  It  was  not  such  showy  work 
as  swaying  great  audiences  might  be;  but  the  results  were 
secure.  Emotional  tides  had  their  ebb  and  flow.  Indi- 
vidual conversation  was  upon  a  saner  level,  and  both  Paul 

33  1  Thess.  2.  10. 

34  I  Thess.  2.  11. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  157 

and  his  hearer  knew  just  where  they  were  at  each  step. 
These  Thessalonian  converts  could  stand  alone  when  Paul 
was  taken  from  them.  They  were  steadfast  in  persecution 
and  loyal  to  the  end. 

(11)  Paul's  ministry  had  a  practical  end  in  view.35  He 
aimed  at  immediate  and  lasting  results.  Only  one  thing 
would  satisfy  him.  His  converts  must  walk  worthily  of 
God,  who  had  called  them  into  his  own  kingdom  and  glory. 

(12)  We  scarcely  need  to  add  that  Paul's  ministry  was 
a  fruitful  ministry.  Men  were  attracted  by  it.  Its  inspira- 
tion was  contagious.  It  reached  the  hearts  and  regenerated 
the  lives  of  those  who  heard.  It  turned  heathen  sensualists 
into  Christian  saints.  It  founded  new  churches  in  Asia  and 
Europe.  It  changed  the  moral  complexion  of  the  whole 
ancient  world. 

This  is  the  Pauline  type  of  ministry,  full  of  holy  boldness 
and  assurance,  free  from  impurity,  deceit,  self-seeking,  and 
flattery;  sympathetic,  affectionate,  laborious,  holy,  right- 
eous, unblamable,  dealing  with  individuals,  aiming  at  prac- 
tical ends,  and  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power, 
claiming  and  achieving  victory  continually  in  the  name 
and  with  the  help  of  God.  Is  this  the  type  of  ministry  in 
the  church  to-day  ? 

VIII.  Some  Noteworthy  Passages 

1.  In  1  Cor.  13.  13  we  have  the  Pauline  triad  of  Christian 
graces,  "Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  and  love,  these  three." 
In  Rev.  2.  2  we  have  the  Apocalyptic  triad,  "I  know  thy 
works,  and  thy  toil  and  patience."  In  1  Thess.  1.  3  we  have 
these  two  triads  combined,  "We  remember  without  ceasing 
your  work  of  faith  and  labor  of  love  and  patience  of  hope 
in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  There  is  no  antithesis  between 
faith  and  works  in  Paul's  mind.  Faith  shows  itself  in 
"work."  It  is  never  idle.  It  never  sits  with  folded  hands. 
Faith  is  full  of  energy.    It  proves  itself  in  ceaseless  activity. 

36  1  Thess.  2.  12. 


158  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Even  so  love  "labors."  Love  never  counts  the  cost.  It 
toils  without  ceasing.  It  delights  to  spend  and  be  spent  in 
behalf  of  those  it  loves.  It  bears  any  burden ;  it  undertakes 
any  task ;  it  travails  without  murmuring ;  it  suffers  without 
complaining.  Love  proves  itself  in  its  "labor"  for  others. 
It  is  not  content  with  expressions  of  affection.  It  expresses 
its  affection  not  in  words  but  in  deeds,  not  in  sentiment  but 
in  service,  not  in  love  lyrics  merely  but  in  love  labors. 
Faith  may  be  disappointed  again  and  again ;  but  it  will 
"work"  on  in  perfect  confidence  that  in  the  end  it  will 
appear  that  He  is  faithful  who  has  promised.  Love  may  be 
disappointed  again  and  again,  but  it  will  "labor"  on  and 
never  be  discouraged  as  long  as  love  lasts. 

Hope  may  be  disappointed  again  and  again,  but  it  will  be 
"patient"  and  wait  for  the  consummation  of  its  desires. 
Hope  is  never  fretful  and  peevish.  Hope  is  full  of  faith 
and  therefore  patient  to  the  end.  Hope  proves  itself  in 
patience.  An  idle  faith,  a  lazy  love,  an  impatient  hope  are 
not  possible  in  the  Christian  life.  These  two  triads  are  indis- 
solubly  wedded  in  the  Christian  faith.  That  is  about  the 
first  truth  proclaimed  in  this  first  Christian  writing.  In  the 
Pastoral  Epistles  Paul  substitutes  "patience"  for  "hope" 
in  his  triad  in  three  different  passages,  namely  i  Tim.  6.  n, 
"Follow  after  faith,  love,  patience";  and  2  Tim.  3.  10, 
"Thou  didst  follow  my  faith,  love,  patience" ;  and  Titus 
2.  2,  "Let  aged  men  be  sound  in  faith,  in  love,  in  patience." 
It  seems  as  if  Paul  the  aged  had  come  to  identify  patience 
and  hope,  and  to  believe  that  the  possession  of  hope 
was  proven  by  patient  endurance  to  the  end.  Do  faith, 
hope,  and  love  seem  to  any  to  be  feminine  graces,  to  be 
cultivated  in  the  shade  or  in  the  seclusion  of  the  home? 
Let  them  be  joined  in  wedlock  to  this  masculine  trio — work, 
labor,  patience — bearing  the  heat  and  the  burden  of  the  day 
in  the  world's  great  harvest  field,  and  from  that  union  will 
come  all  the  good  things  we  pray  for,  hope  for,  and  long 
to  see.    These  six  conjoined  will  regenerate  the  race. 


FIRST  TI-IESSALONIANS  159 

2.  Note  the  oxymoron  in  1.  6,  "Ye  received  the  word  in 
much  affliction,  with  joy  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Affliction 
with  joy !  It  represents  a  new  possibility  introduced  into 
the  world  by  the  Christian  faith.  The  phrase  describes  the 
life  of  Jesus,  who  was  the  greatest  sufferer  the  world  has 
known,  and  who  yet  had  the  greatest  joy  in  world  victory, 
who  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him  endured  the  cross, 
despising  the  shame.  Was  there  ever  any  affliction  like 
unto  his?  Was  there  ever  any  joy  that  equaled  his  own? 
Affliction  with  joy!  It  describes  the  life  experience  of  the 
apostle  Paul.  At  the  time  of  his  conversion  he  was  told, 
"I  will  show  thee  how  many  things  thou  must  suffer  for 
my  name's  sake."  36  His  Christian  calling  meant  affliction 
for  him  wherever  he  went;  but  he  had  the  Spirit's  pres- 
ence, and  that  meant  love  and  joy  and  peace.  Affliction 
with  joy!  The  Master  had  promised  it  to  all  who  followed 
him,  "In  the  world  ye  have  tribulation:  but  be  of  good 
cheer ;  I  have  overcome  the  world."  37  Tribulation,  con- 
solation, coronation !  These  three  things  are  sure  to  fall 
to  the  portion  of  every  faithful  disciple;  but  the  sufferings 
of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  to  the 
joy  we  have  in  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  glory  which  shall  be 
revealed.  Like  the  Thessalonians  we  receive  the  gospel 
gladly,  even  though  it  does  mean  affliction  in  world  antag- 
onism, because  we  may  have  through  it  world  victory. 

3.  In  4.  11  we  find  three  things  for  which  Paul  thought 
the  Thessalonians  might  safely  be  ambitious.  Ambition 
is  in  bad  repute  in  some  quarters.  We  venture  to  say  that 
it  depends  altogether  upon  the  nature  of  an  ambition,  upon 
the  end  at  which  it  aims,  as  to  whether  it  is  bad  or  good. 
There  may  be  a  holy  ambition  as  well  as  an  evil  one.  Paul 
was  an  ambitious  man.  He  says  so  himself,  and  he  tells 
us  what  his  ambitions  were.  In  Rom.  15.  20  he  says  that 
he  was  ambitious  to  evangelize  where  Christ  had  not  yet 

36  Acts  9.  16. 

37  John  16.  33. 


160  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

been  named,38  where  the  gospel  had  not  yet  been  preached, 
that  he  might  not  build  upon  another  man's  foundation. 
He  was  ambitious  to  be  a  pioneer  in  the  missionary  field. 
That,  surely,  was  a  worthy  ambition.  To  the  realization 
of  that  ambition  Paul  sacrificed  his  life.  He  carried  the 
gospel  into  the  most  difficult  foreign  fields.  He  made 
Pauline  Christianity  the  dominant  force  in  Europe.  In  2 
Cor.  5.  9  Paul  tells  us  of  another  of  his  ambitions.  We  are 
ambitious,  he  says,  to  be  well  pleasing  unto  God.39  Paul 
loved  honor,  but  it  was  the  honor  of  God  which  he  coveted. 
He  sought  for  glory,  but,  as  he  told  the  Thessalonians,  he 
did  not  seek  the  glory  of  men.40  He  was  ambitious,  but 
his  only  ambition  was  to  please  God.  That,  surely,  was  a 
worthy  ambition.  To  the  realization  of  that  ambition  Paul 
dedicated  his  life.  He  could  call  God  to  witness  that  his 
conscience  was  clear  all  the  time.  At  the  end  of  his  life 
he  could  say,  "I  have  fought  a  good  fight;  I  have  won  the 
crown." 

In  this  passage41  Paul  exhorts  the  Thessalonians  to  be 
ambitious  in  three  respects,  in  order  that  two  results  may 
follow.  On  the  supposition  that  Paul  would  not  exhort 
others  to  do  anything  which  he  was  not  doing  himself  we 
may  add  these  three  ambitions  to  Paul's  list.  What  are  they  ? 
First,  an  ambition  to  be  quiet  !42  This  is  another  oxymoron  ; 
like  that  exhortation  in  Heb.  4.  n,  Strive,  wrestle,  agonize, 
work  hard  at  it  and  so — enter  into  rest !  Trying  to  rest, 
and  working  hard  at  it — that  seems  like  a  contradiction  of 
terms.  Being  ambitious  and  being  quiet — that  seems  to  be 
utterly  inconsistent  again.  The  ambitious  man  is  up  and 
doing.  He  is  keeping  himself  in  the  public  eye.  He  is 
restless  and  unquiet  and  always  eager  for  greater  promi- 
nence  and   power.     "Now,"   says   Paul,   "all   that   energy 


33  tyiXoTLfiobnevov  tvayye'/Afcodai  ovx  brrov  uvo^dadij  Xptardg. 
»  tyiXoTtfiovfiida  .  .  .  ev&peorot  air<^  dvat. 
40  i  Thess.  2.  6.  «  1  Thess.  4.  11. 

42  <pt'koTifieiodai  //ovxa^etv. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  161 

which  some  men  put  into  the  effort  to  advertise  themselves 
and  to  advance  their  own  interests  do  you  put  into  the  effort 
to  be  inconspicuous  and  retiring.  Be  just  as  eager  to  be 
quiet  as  they  are  to  make  a  noise  in  the  world.  We  exhort 
you,  brethren,  that  ye  be  ambitious  to  be  quiet.'' 

This  is  a  new  kind  of  ambition,  but  we  would  be  just  as 
well  off  with  more  of  it.  There  are  those  in  every  church 
who  become  ambitious  to  enjoy  the  extraordinary  gifts 
rather  than  the  extraordinary  graces.  They  would  like  to 
be  endowed  with  the  gifts  of  healing  or  the  gift  of  tongues. 
They  would  much  enjoy  spiritual  ecstasies  and  astonishing 
visions  and  revelations.  They  revel  in  religious  excite- 
ment and  never  think  they  have  a  good  time  unless  they  can 
leap  or  shout  for  joy.  It  is  not  a  very  wholesome  ambi- 
tion. It  is  likely  to  lead  to  excesses  and  reactions  and  insin- 
cerities. Paul  thinks  it  is  a  higher  and  better  ambition  to 
be  quiet,  to  enjoy  a  steady  and  sustained  equanimity  of 
soul.  It  would  be  worth  while  for  some  people  to  become 
ambitious  to  attain  to  a  Quaker  quietness  of  experience  and 
life.  It  would  revolutionize  some  of  them,  but  they  would 
be  the  better  for  the  change. 

The  second  ambition  mentioned  here  is  even  more  start- 
ling than  the  first.  Paul  says  that  the  Thessalonians  ought 
to  be  ambitious  "to  mind  their  own  business,"  43  to  attend 
to  their  own  affairs,  to  see  that  these  were  managed  well 
and  that  all  the  things  for  which  they  were  responsible 
were  taken  care  of  and  brought  to  a  successful  consumma- 
tion !  How  much  more  rapidly  the  work  of  the  world 
would  be  done  if  everybody  would  follow  this  ambition! 
The  third  ambition  mentioned  in  this  list  is  the  ambition 
to  have  employment  in  manual  labor,  "to  work  with  the 
hands !"  44  Satan  still  has  some  work  for  idle  hands  to 
do.  Paul  was  ambitious  to  keep  his  ringers  so  busy  with 
legitimate  and  necessary  occupation  that  the  devil  would  not 

43  npaaaeiv  rd  Idia. 

44  ipyd^eadat  rale  \cpatv. 


162  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

find  them  fit  for  his  purpose  at  any  time.  He  would  rather 
weave  the  coarse  goats'  hair  into  coarse  tent  cloth  than  to 
weave  the  devil's  web.  He  was  a  workingman,  and  this 
letter  to  the  Thessalonians  is  a  letter  from  a  workingman 
to  workingmen.  He  knew  that  steady  employment  was  a 
help  to  the  moral  life.  He  knew  that  manual  labor  kept 
body  and  mind  in  good  condition,  and  so  was  conducive 
to  the  best  spiritual  state. 

He  had  said  these  things  to  the  Thessalonians  while  he 
was  with  them.  He  repeats  them  now:  "Be  ambitious  to 
be  quiet,  to  mind  your  own  business,  and  to  work  with 
your  hands ;  and  if  you  do  so,  two  things  will  result.  First, 
you  will  give  no  offense  to  people  outside  of  the  church. 
They  will  be  constrained  to  admire  your  becoming  behavior. 
The  Christian  will  be  known  by  his  walk,  and  the  Christian 
walk  will  be  in  good  repute  among  all  men.  Then,  second, 
you  will  have  need  of  nothing.  You  will  have  a  fair  main- 
tenance, and  you  will  be  independent  in  the  enjoyment  of 
it.  Being  quiet,  you  may  be  self-sufficient.  Minding  your 
own  business,  you  will  need  nobody's  assistance  to  take 
care  of  it.  Working  with  your  hands,  you  can  make  your 
own  living  and  need  not  be  dependent  upon  anybody's  char- 
ity for  anything."  Plere  are  Paul's  ambitions:  to  be  a 
pioneer  missionary,  to  be  pleasing  to  God,  to  be  modest  and 
quiet,  to  mind  his  own  business,  to  work  with  his  hands, 
to  walk  becomingly  before  the  world,  to  be  independent 
of  charity.  These  seven  ideals  Paul  was  ambitious  to 
realize  in  his  own  life.  He  strove  manfully  and  success- 
fully to  that  end.  His  ambitions  were  difficult  of  achieve- 
ment, but  he  was  man  enough  to  try  for  them,  and  his  life- 
long effort  was  crowned  with  continuous  and  glorious  suc- 
cess. 

4.  In  5.  16-22  we  have  a  cluster  of  brilliants,  a  succession 
of  short  exhortations,  each  of  which  is  a  gem  and  which  as 
a  collection  scarcely  is  to  be  equaled  in  the  Scriptures. 

It  is  a  unique  conjunction  of  sayings  of  pith  and  power. 


FIRST  THESSALONIANS  163 

"Unceasing  rejoicing,  continuous  prayer,  and  uninterrupted 
thanksgiving"  form  a  triad  of  Christian  characteristics, 
unparalleled  in  any  other  religion  in  the  world.  The  exhor- 
tation to  "quench  not  the  Spirit"  probably  was  given  to 
those  who  felt  that  fanaticism  was  being  developed  in  some 
quarters  under  the  cover  of  spiritual  superiorities  in  revela- 
tion and  power.  The  natural  tendency  in  soberer  minds 
is  to  preclude  all  danger  from  this  source  by  quenching  the 
Spirit  in  all  his  special  manifestations.  This  is  to  accom- 
plish a  smaller  good  at  the  expense  of  a  greater  evil.  Better 
have  the  Spirit  with  all  the  excesses  than  to  quench  the 
Spirit  and  have  perfect  decorum  in  perfect  death.  The 
wiser  procedure  is  to  test  these  professed  revelations  and 
manifestations  of  the  Spirit,  to  put  them  to  the  proof,  and 
then  to  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  and  to  reject  only 
that  which  is  seen  to  be  evil.  Paul's  prophecies  had  caused 
unrest,  and  doubtless  there  were  some  who  made  light  of 
all  prophetic  power  and  denied  that  it  ought  to  have  any 
weight  or  to  be  granted  any  validity.  Paul  exhorts  such 
not  to  despise  prophesyings.  For  the  most  part,  however, 
the  prophesying  of  future  events  has  been  of  little  value  to 
the  Christian  Church.  Paul  himself  seems  to  have  laid 
less  stress  upon  it  in  his  later  ministry. 

•  5.  In  5.  23  we  have  the  fullest  division  of  man's  being  to 
be  found  in  the  Scriptures:  "The  God  of  peace  himself 
sanctify  you  wholly ;  and  may  your  spirit  and  soul  and  body 
be  preserved  entire,  without  blame  at  the  coming  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ."  The  body  is  the  material  portion  of 
man.  The  soul  is  the  seat  of  intelligence,  of  thought,  will, 
and  desire.  The  spirit  is  that  portion  of  our  being  which 
we  do  not  share  with  the  animals  but  with  God.  The  spirit 
worships  and  communes  and  becomes  one  with  the  Divine. 

IX.  Attestation 

"The  authenticity  of  First  Thessalonians  has  been  chal- 
lenged by  Schrader,  Bauer,  Holsten,  and  the  writers  of  the 


i64  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Dutch  school.  But  it  is  accepted  with  little  or  no  hesitation 
by  the  great  majority  of  scholars,  including  not  only  all 
English  writers,  but  men  of  such  various  standpoints  as 
Pfleiderer,  Holtzmann,  Lipsius,  Hase,  Hilgenfeld,  Man- 
gold, Wittichen,  Julicher,  Harnack,  Renan,  Godet,  De 
Pressense,  Reuss,  Sabatier,  Schmiedel,  von  Soden,  Clemen, 
and  Zahn."  45  Irenasus,  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexandria 
make  use  of  this  epistle.  It  is  in  the  canonical  list  of  the 
Muratorian  Fragment.  The  Syriac  and  the  Old  Latin 
versions  contain  it.  It  is  as  well  authenticated  as  any  of 
Paul's  epistles. 

X.  Possible  Agrapha 

i.  Paul  describes  the  second  coming  and  the  rapture  of 
the  saints,  and  he  declares  that  he  says  these  things  "by 
the  word  of  the  Lord."  46  Ewald  thinks  that  Paul  had  this 
saying  of  Jesus  lying  in  writing  before  him,  but  that  it 
has  been  preserved  to  us  in  this  passage  alone.47  Either 
this  is  true  or  Paul  is  here  recording  some  one  of  the 
special  revelations  granted  to  him  in  his  ministry.  In  either 
case  he  would  claim  the  Lord's  authority  for  it. 

2.  One  of  the  best  attested  of  the  unrecorded  sayings  of 
our  Lord  is  the  injunction,  "Become  good  money-changers." 
This  is  found  so  often  in  connection  with  I  Thess.  5.  19 
that  some  have  thought  that  the  passage  ought  to  be  printed 
in  quotation  marks  as  coming  directly  from  the  lips  of 
Jesus. 

This  epistle  was  written  after  fifteen  years  of  Paul's 
missionary  career.  For  the  first  fifteen  years  we  have  no 
writing  from  his  hand.  In  the  next  fifteen  years  we  have 
the  succession  of  thirteen  epistles.  This  beginning  of  the 
New  Testament  comes  "Twenty  Years  After"  the  cruci- 
fixion. 


45  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  19. 
40  1  Thess.  4.  15-17. 
47  Sendschr.  4S. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  THESSALONIANS 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  THESSALONIANS 

I.  Date  and  Occasion 

This  epistle  was  written  not  many  months  after  the  first 
and  probably  in  the  same  year,  A.  D.  53.  Paul  still  was  at 
Corinth,  and  some  one  brought  him  further  news  of  the 
condition  of  the  church  in  Thessalonica.  Matters  were 
progressing  very  rapidly  there,  and  among  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  church  members  they  were  getting  worse  rather 
than  better.  Thessalonica  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
Christian  church  to  be  visited  with  one  of  those  eschatolog- 
ical  excitements  which  have  recurred  so  many  times  in  later 
history.  Some  of  its  members  believed  that  the  Day  of 
the  Lord  was  near  at  hand,  and  in  the  tenseness  of  their 
expectation  of  that  great  event  they  lived  in  a  state  of  reli- 
gious exaltation  which  precluded  attention  to  the  ordinary 
duties  of  life.  They  were  disposed  to  quit  work  of  every 
kind,  and  depend  upon  charity  if  need  be  for  the  supply  of 
their  daily  wants  while  they  devoted  themselves  to  prayer 
and  meditation  or  theological  discussion.  Their  assemblies 
were  excited  and  disorderly.  Some  were  disposed  to  panic 
and  others  to  pious  orgies.  The  insubordinates  claimed  the 
authority  of  Paul  for  their  beliefs  and  a  forged  letter  was 
in  circulation  setting  forth  these  things  in  Paul's  name.1 
Some  were  being  shaken  from  their  reason,  as  always  is 
the  case  in  such  circumstances;  and  the  whole  community 
was  being  disturbed  and  thrown  into  confusion.  We  take 
it  that  only  a  small  portion  of  the  church  members  were 
being  carried  away  into  extremes  of  idleness  and  disorder; 
1  2  Thess.  2.  2. 

167 


1 68  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

but  religious  wildfire  spreads  rapidly  if  it  once  gets  a  good 
start ;  and  Paul  takes  up  his  pen  to  write  a  second  letter 
to  the  Thessalonians,  hoping  to  comfort  and  encourage  the 
faithful  and  to  clear  up  all  misconceptions  concerning  the 
second  coming,  and  to  strengthen  the  discipline  of  the 
church. 

II.  The  Second  Advent 

These  two  epistles  to  the  Thessalonians  are  the  eschat- 
ological  epistles  of  the  New  Testament.  In  I  Thess.  4. 
13-18  and  2  Thess.  2.  1-12,  and  one  other  passage,  1  Cor. 
15.  35-58,  we  have  what  has  been  called  the  Pauline 
Apocalypse,  taking  the  place  in  the  writings  of  Paul  of  the 
Apocalypse  of  John  in  the  New  Testament  and  of  the  book 
of  Daniel  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  probably  would  seem  a 
little  strange  to  most  people  that  these  first  epistles  of  Paul 
should  deal  most  largely  with  the  last  of  the  logical  succes- 
sion in  great  themes  in  theology.  Paul  discusses  the  last 
things  first.  Why  should  he  begin  with  a  prophecy  and 
description  of  the  end  of  all  things?  Jowett  says  that  Paul 
preached  to  the  Thessalonians  "not  the  gospel  of  the  cross 
of  Christ,  but  of  the  coming  of  Christ,"  and  it  would  seem 
at  least  that  this  preaching  had  made  the  greatest  impression 
upon  some  minds  in  this  church. 

Why  should  he  have  put  especial  emphasis  upon  this 
theme?  Bishop  Lightfoot  has  made  some  excellent  sug- 
gestions in  this  matter.  He  says:  "There  are  many  reasons 
why  the  subject  of  the  second  advent  should  occupy  a  larger 
space  in  the  earliest  stage  of  the  apostolical  teaching  than 
afterward:  I.  It  was  closely  bound  up  with  the  fundamental 
fact  of  the  gospel,  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  and  thus  it 
formed  a  natural  starting  point  of  Christian  doctrine.  2. 
It  afforded  the  true  satisfaction  to  those  Messianic  hopes 
which  had  drawn  the  Jewish  converts  to  the  fold  of  Christ. 
3.  It  was  the  best  consolation  and  support  of  the  infant 
church   under   persecution,    which   must   have   been    most 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  169 

keenly  felt  in  the  first  abandonment  of  worldly  pleasures 
and  interests.  And  4,  more  especially,  as  telling  of  a 
righteous  Judge  who  would  not  overlook  iniquity,  it  was 
essential  to  that  call  to  repentance  which  must  everywhere 
precede  the  direct  and  positive  preaching  of  the  gospel."  2 
The  resurrected  Jesus  was  coming  again.  The  Messianic 
king  was  to  establish  his  kingdom.  He  would  judge  all 
sinners  righteously.  He  would  reward  all  saints  adequately. 
These  were  main  features  in  the  primitive  preaching,  and 
they  furnished  it  much  of  its  impressiveness  and  power. 

Renan,3  Hausrath,4  Shaw,5  and  others  have  told  us  that 
there  was  widespread  alarm  at  just  this  time  throughout  the 
empire.  Many  disturbing  rumors  were  abroad0  and  many 
prophesied  the  speedy  dissolution  of  the  then  present  order 
of  things.  The  preaching  of  Paul  chimed  in  with  this  gen- 
eral state  of  terrified  expectation.  The  Christian  faith  con- 
firmed the  heathen  auguries.  New  converts  found  that  their 
old  fears  were  well  founded,  and  that  the  great  and  terrible 
Day  of  the  Lord  indeed  was  at  hand.  It  was  not  strange 
that  some  were  swept  off  their  feet  in  a  tumult  of  religious 
excitement  at  the  thought  of  the  immediate  nearness  of 
the  end.  How  far  was  Paul  responsible  for  the  realistic 
vividness  of  their  faith?  What  was  his  own  belief  con- 
cerning this  thing? 

III.  Paul's  Belief 

1.  Paul  believed  and  preached  that  the  advent  of  the 
Lord  was  very  near.  He  told  his  converts  that  their  whole 
duty  was  to  serve  the  living  God  and  to  wait  for  the  com- 
ing of  his  Son  from  heaven.7  He  promised  them  that  if 
they  would  wait  for  the  revelation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 

2  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  228. 

3  Renan,  L' Antichrist,  pp.  321-39. 

4  Op.  cit.,  Ill,  pp.  213-15.  6  Op.  cit.,  pp.  36-38- 
6Tac.  Ann.,  xii  and  xiv;  Dio  Caso.,  lx,  35;  Suet.  Claud,  xlvi. 
7 1  Thess,  1.  9,  10. 


170  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  Lord  would  confirm  them  unto  the  end,  that  they  might 
be  unreprovable  in  the  day  of  the  Lord's  coming.8  He 
prophesied  that  when  the  last  trump  should  sound,  an- 
nouncing the  coming  of  the  Judge  and  King,  they  should 
not  all  sleep,  but  they  should  all  be  changed,  in  a  moment,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye.9  The  dead  in  Christ  should  rise 
first;  then  those  who  were  alive,  who  were  left,  should 
together  with  them  be  caught  up  into  the  clouds,  to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air:  and  so  should  they  ever  be  with  the 
Lord.10 

2.  Paul  agreed  with  the  other  apostles  at  this  point. 
Tames  wrote,  "Be  patient  therefore,  brethren,  until  the  com- 
ing of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Establish  your  hearts :  for  the  com- 
ing of  the  Lord  is  at  hand.  Murmur  not,  brethren,  one 
against  another,  that  ye  be  not  judged:  behold,  the  judge 
standeth  before  the  doors."  n  Peter  declares,  "The  end 
of  all  things  is  at  hand."  12  John  writes  last  of  all,  "He 
who  testifieth  these  things  saith,  Yea :  I  come  quickly,"  13 
and  again,  "Little  children,  it  is  the  last  hour:  and  as  ye 
have  heard  that  antichrist  cometh,  even  now  have  there 
arisen  many  antichrists ;  whereby  we  know  that  it  is  the 
last  hour."  14  The  apostolic  preaching  seems  to  have  been 
of  one  accord  at  this  point.  The  explanation  of  this  fact 
must  have  been  that  they  believed  that  they  had  "the  word 
of  the  Lord"  on  this  matter.  They  thought  that  they  repre- 
sented the  Lord's  thought  and  teaching.15  They  had  had 
his  promise  of  a  speedy  return.  Paul  either  got  this  truth 
from  them  or  believed  that  he  had  had  a  special  revelation 
on  the  subject.16     He  seems  to  have  been  just  as  sure  as 

s  i  Cor.  I.  7,  8.  12  I  Pet.  4.  7. 

9  1  Cor.  15.  51.  "Rev.  22.  20. 

10  1  Thess.  4.  16,  17.  14  1  John  2.  18. 

11  James  5.  7-9. 

16  Calvin,  Ewald,  Weiss,  Weizs'acker,  Re?ch,  Ropes,  O.  Holtzmann, 
von  Soden,  Hofmann. 

16  Chrysostom,  Theodoret,  Olshausen,  DeWette,  Lunemann,  Zock- 
ler,  Alford,  Ellicott,  Dods,  Godet,  Findlay,  Lightfoot,  Milligan,  MofTatt. 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  171 

they  that  the  Second  Advent  was  at  hand  and  that  it  might 
come  at  any  time  and  that  it  was  altogether  likely  to  come 
to  that  generation. 

3.  There  are  some  indications  that  Paul  modified  his 
views  on  this  subject  in  his  later  life.  It  is  noticeable  that 
after  the  first  three  epistles,  First  and  Second  Thessalon- 
ians  and  First  Corinthians,  he  does  not  return  to  the  theme. 
He  lays  the  emphasis  thereafter  on  the  realities  of  present 
religious  experience  rather  than  upon  the  uncertainties  of 
future  happenings.  In  Rom.  11.  25  Paul  suggests  that  the 
fullness  of  the  Gentiles  must  intervene  before  the  nation 
of  Israel  would  be  saved.  In  Phil.  1.  21-24  Pam"  clearly 
contemplates  the  possibility  of  his  own  death  before  the 
advent  of  the  Lord.  In  2.  Tim.  4.  6  he  is  sure  that  the 
time  of  his  departure  is  at  hand,  but  that  even  if  he  die, 
the  Lord  will  save  him  unto  the  heavenly  kingdom.17  Evi- 
dently, the  apostolic  expectation  of  the  immediate  advent 
was  disappointed.  It  was  a  mistaken  expectation.  If  it 
rested  upon  the  teaching  of  the  Lord  then  we  must  conclude 
that  it  was  either  a  mistaken  interpretation  of  his  teaching 
or,  what  seems  to  be  more  likely,  that  Jesus  himself  was  as 
uncertain  of  the  time  of  the  advent  as  his  apostles  were 
and  shared  wTith  them  his  hope  that  it  would  not  be  long 
delayed.  We  know  that  he  told  them  plainly  that  he  did 
not  know  what  the  day  and  hour  would  be,ls  but  he  may 
have  hoped  and  believed  that  it  would  be  soon,  and  the 
disciples  were  apt  to  credit  him  with  infallible  information 
upon  all  these  things  as  well  as  in  the  realm  of  spiritual 
truth. 

IV.  The  Eschatological  Paragraph,  2.  1-12 

As  in  all  apocalyptical  passages,  the  language  in  this 
eschatological  paragraph  is  enigmatical.  Augustine  de- 
clared that  he  was  puzzled  by  it,  and  was  ignorant  of  what 

17  2  Tim.  4.  18. 

18  Mark  13.  32. 


172  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Paul  might  mean.  Farrar  says,  very  sensibly:  "So  far  as 
it  is  of  doubtful  meaning  it  can  have  no  special  significance 
for  us."  19 

i.  There  are  at  least  two  reasons  why  the  passage  is  put 
into  this  obscure  form,  (i)  There  was  no  need  under  the 
circumstances  for  Paul  to  be  more  explicit.  He  had  talked 
these  things  over  with  the  Thessalonians  and  in  all  prob- 
ability he  had  spoken  plainly  at  that  time,  and  he  needed 
now  only  to  remind  them  of  what  he  had  said.  So  he  writes 
by  way  of  allusion  rather  than  of  explicit  information. 
(2)  This  subject  had  a  political  bearing,  and  doubtless  it 
was  dangerous  to  put  into  writing  anything  which  would 
incriminate  the  author.  Paul  had  just  escaped  trouble  at 
Thessalonica  because  of  his  oral  teaching  there.  He  would 
be  careful  to  write  nothing  which  could  be  presented  to  the 
magistrates  in  evidence  against  the  Christians. 

2.  Many  volumes  have  been  written  upon  the  exegesis 
of  this  passage.  Malvenda,  1556-1627,  wrote  eleven  books 
about  the  Man  of  Sin.  Most  of  the  commentators  have 
gone  astray  in  attempting  to  find  some  definite  and  detailed 
application  of  these  prophecies,  instead  of  contenting  them- 
selves with  the  interpretation  of  its  general  principles. 
There  have  been  many  conflicting  conclusions  as  to  the 
identity  of  the  Man  of  Sin  and  of  the  Restrainer,  and  as  to 
the  nature  and  date  of  the  Great  Apostasy  here  foretold. 
We  need  not  put  them  down.  Some  were  fantastic  and 
wisely  have  been  forgotten.  Some  have  been  disproven  by 
the  progress  of  events.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  resur- 
recting them  at  this  late  date. 

3.  We  suggest  the  following  conclusions  as  representing 
a  somewhat  general  agreement  in  modern  scholarship :  (  1  ) 
The  apostasy  (verse  3)  is  the  definite  and  final  rejection 
of  the  true  Messiah  by  the  Jews,  which  might  come,  as  the 
author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews   suggests,  after  a 


19  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  206. 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  173 

period  of  forty  years,  in  which  the  claims  of  Christianity 
were  to  be  presented  to  them  even  as  their  fathers  saw  the 
wonders  of  Jehovah  forty  years  in  the  wilderness.20  (2) 
The  Man  of  Sin  (verses  3,  4)  is  the  false  Messiah  who 
will  incarnate  within  himself  all  the  Jewish  opposition  to 
the  gospel.  He  will  be  a  lawless  one,  working  signs  and 
deceiving,  and  his  destruction  will  result  in  the  final  estab- 
lishment of  the  Christian  Church,  verses  8-10.  (3)  The 
Restrainer  (verses  6,  7)  is  the  Roman  emperor  as  repre- 
senting the  restraining  power  of  the  Roman  empire,  holding 
the  Jews  in  subjection  and  preventing  them  from  illegal  and 
destructive  attacks  upon  the  Christians.  So  far  in  Paul's 
experience  the  Roman  power  had  been  exerted  in  his  behalf 
whenever  his  life  or  liberty  had  been  imperiled  by  mobs. 
The  time  of  the  civil  persecutions  had  not  yet  come.  Almost 
all  the  opposition  he  had  encountered  had  arisen  from 
the  religious  authorities  and  not  from  those  of  the  state. 
The  power  of  the  empire  had  been  protecting  and  friendly. 
In  Paul's  Apocalypse  it  is  the  restraining  power  for  the 
present.  This  attitude  toward  the  Roman  government  was 
maintained  by  many  of  the  church  Fathers,  such  as  Cyril, 
Jerome,  Chrysostom,  Lactantius,  and  Theodoret;  and  Ter- 
tullian  voiced  the  prevailing  opinion  in  the  early  Christian 
Church  when  he  said,  "We  have  also  another  and  a  greater 
need  to  pray  for  the  emperors,  and,  moreover,  for  the 
whole  estate  of  the  empire,  and  the  fortunes  of  Rome, 
knowing,  as  we  do,  that  the  mighty  shock  which  hangeth 
over  the  whole  world,  and  the  end  of  time  itself,  threaten- 
ing terrible  and  grievous  things,  is  delayed  because  of  the 
time  allowed  to  the  Roman  empire.  We  would  not  there- 
fore experience  these  things,  and  while  we  pray  that  they 
may  be  put  off,  we  favor  the  long  continuance  of  Rome."  2l 
(4)  The  mystery  of  lawlessness  (verse  7)  is  the  strange 
and  deadly  hatred  and  opposition  of  the  Jews,  whose  office 

20  Heb.  3.  7-12. 

21  Apology,  xxxii. 


174  PAUL  AND  ITIS  EPISTLES 

and  right  it  was  to  welcome  the  Messiah  and  to  establish  his 
kingdom  upon  the  earth,  but  who  were  given  over  to  believe 
in  a  lie  and  to  take  pleasure  in  unrighteousness,  and  who, 
therefore,  received  not  the  love  of  the  truth,  that  they  might 
be  saved.  The  phrases  in  this  paragraph  must  have  had 
some  definite  and  special  application  to  the  circumstances 
of  that  time.  The  general  truth  of  the  paragraph  is  cap- 
able of  application  to  any  time.  The  Man  of  Sin  may  take 
new  form  with  each  new  generation ;  the  Restrainer  always 
is  present;  the  victory  of  the  Lord  Jesus  always  is  sure. 

4.  If  this  paragraph  is,  as  we  suppose,  purely  apocalyp- 
tical, it  must  be  subject  to  the  general  rules  of  apocalyptical 
interpretation.  There  has  been  a  revival  of  interest  in  the 
apocalyptical  literature  of  the  Jews  among  modern  scholars, 
and  it  is  agreed  very  generally  that  this  literature  has  had 
more  influence  upon  our  New  Testament  than  was  formerly 
supposed.  The  Apocalypse  of  John  does  not  stand  alone  in 
the  literature  of  its  times  as  it  does  in  our  New  Testament. 
There  are  a  number  of  other  Apocalypses  in  existence  in 
whole  or  in  part  which  belong  to  the  same  period  of  de- 
velopment in  Hebrew  history,  and  the  study  of  these  has 
been  very  helpful  in  the  interpretation  and  the  understand- 
ing of  the  apocalyptical  portions  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  the  Testaments  of  the  Twelve 
Patriarchs,  the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  the  Book  of  the  Secrets 
of  Enoch,  the  Fourth  Book  of  Esdras,  the  Apocalypse  of 
Baruch,  the  Assumption  of  Moses,  and  the  Book  of  Enoch 
are  all  apocalyptical  in  character  and  may  have  influenced 
the  thought  of  the  New  Testament  writers  in  many  partic- 
ulars. 

Jude,  the  brother  of  James  and  of  Jesus,  quotes  in  his 
epistle  from  both  the  Assumption  of  Moses  and  the  Book 
of  Enoch.  If  Jude  had  read  these  books  and  quoted  from 
them,  it  would  seem  altogether  likely  that  Jesus  had  read 
them,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  quoted  from  them  too.  The 
words  "when  the  Son  of  man  shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  his 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  175 

glory"  may  have  been  taken  by  Jesus  directly  from  the 
Book  of  Enoch,  62.  3.  In  Enoch  69.  27  we  read,  "The  sum 
of  judgment  was  committed  unto  him,  the  Son  of  man." 
Jesus  seems  to  be  appropriating  this  phraseology  when  he 
says,  "He  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto  the  Son  .  .  . 
because  he  is  the  Son  of  man."  22  The  leading  English 
authority  upon  this  apocalyptical  literature,  R.  H.  Charles, 
thinks  that  phrases,  clauses,  or  thoughts  derived  from  the 
Book  of  Enoch  are  to  be  found  not  only  in  the  Epistle 
of  Jude  and  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  but  also  in  the  Gos- 
pels according  to  John  and  Matthew  and  Luke,  and  in 
the  book  of  Acts,  and  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Romans 
and  to  the  Ephesians,  and  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.23 

If  it  be  true  that  the  influence  of  the  Book  of  Enoch 
and  of  the  other  apocalyptic  literature  can  be  traced 
through  nearly  the  whole  of  our  New  Testament,  it  be- 
comes extremely  probable  that  Jesus  and  Jude  and  John 
and  Paul  and  the  other  apostles  had  considerable  respect 
for  this  literature,  and  that  their  eschatological  conceptions 
were  clothed  largely  in  the  imagery  furnished  from  these 
sources.  If  so,  all  of  this  imagery  belongs  to  the  current 
Jewish  theology  and  phraseology ;  and  its  usefulness  has 
passed  away  with  the  times  to  which  it  was  adapted  and  the 
peoples  to  whom  it  was  at  first  addressed.  Then  it  follows 
that  the  Oriental  and  apocalyptical  imagery  of  such  pas- 
sages as  this  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  has  no  mes- 
sage to  our  day. 

We  learned  long  ago  to  look  for  the  central  truth  illus- 
trated in  each  parable  of  our  Lord  and  not  to  run  into 
exegetical  absurdities  by  trying  to  find  a  meaning  for  each 
minor  detail  used  in  the  development  of  that  truth.  The 
same  principle  ought  to  be  applied  to  the  interpretation  of 
the  apocalyptical  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  We  are 
not  interested  in  the  imaginative  details  which  appealed  to 

22  John  5.  22,  27. 

93  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  I,  p.  708. 


176  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  Oriental  mind  two  thousand  years  ago.  Here  in  the 
Occident  we  look  only  for  the  spiritual  lesson  these  details 
were  intended  to  make  impressive  and  prominent.  That 
lesson  may  abide,  though  the  vehicle  of  its  first  transmis- 
sion may  have  belonged  to  the  rhetorical  and  homiletical 
methods  in  vogue  in  a  particular  age  and  their  usefulness 
may  long  have  passed  away. 

Is  there  any  good  reason  why  we  may  not  treat  these 
apocalyptical  passages  in  the  same  way  in  which  Peter 
treated  the  apocalyptical  details  of  the  prophecy  of  Joel  in 
his  day?  There  was  that  extraordinary  outpouring  of  the 
Spirit  at  Pentecost,  and  Peter  stood  up  to  explain  the  matter 
to  the  assembled  multitude  and  he  said,  "This  is  that  which 
hath  been  spoken  through  the  prophet  Joel: 

And  it  shall  be  in  the  last  days,  saith  God, 
I  will  pour  forth  of  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh: 
And  I  will  show  wonders  in  the  heaven  above, 


And  signs  on  the  earth  beneath; 
Blood,  and  fire,  and  vapor  of  smoke: 
The  sun  shall  be  turned  into  darkness, 
And  the  moon  into  blood."2* 

Had  any  of  these  things  happened  at  Pentecost?  Not  as  far 
as  our  record  shows.  There  had  been  no  blood  or  vapor 
of  smoke.  The  sun  had  not  been  turned  into  darkness. 
The  moon  had  not  been  turned  into  blood.  What  had  hap- 
pened ?  The  Spirit  had  been  poured  out  upon  the  disciples. 
That  was  the  all-important  thing  in  the  prophecy;  and 
Peter  boldly  claims  that  the  prophecy  of  Joel  had  been  ful- 
filled at  Pentecost,  even  though  all  these  accompaniments 
foretold  in  the  prophecy  had  failed. 

Suppose  we  apply  the  same  principle  to  the  interpretation 
of  these  passages  in  Thessalonians.  What  is  the  central 
truth  set  forth  in  1  Thess.  4.  13-18?     That  neither  death 


24  Acts  2.  16-20. 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  177 

nor  life  can  separate  the  Christian  from  the  Lord.  When 
the  Lord  comes  to  reign  we  shall  be  ever  with  the  Lord. 
That  truth  abides  forevermore.  The  apocalyptical  accom- 
paniments may  fail  as  completely  as  the  prophesied  accom- 
paniments failed  at  Pentecost,  and  yet  the  truth  will  be 
vindicated  as  fully  as  it  was  at  Pentecost  when  all  who  are 
in  Christ  meet  their  Lord  to  live  with  him  forevermore. 
There  is  nothing  but  comfort  in  this  revelation.  Paul  evi- 
dently intended  that  all  he  said  on  this  subject  should  min- 
ister to  the  spiritual  comfort  of  those  to  whom  he  wrote. 
He  concludes  this,  his  first  apocalypse,  with  the  exhorta- 
tion, "Wherefore,  comfort  one  another  with  these  words."25 
What  is  the  central  truth  in  this  second  apocalyptical 
passage  in  the  second  epistle?  It  is  the  comforting  assur- 
ance that  the  Lord  Jesus  will  triumph  over  all  his  foes. 
Whatever  disturbing  circumstances  may  intervene,  and 
whatever  revelations  of  wickedness  may  precede,  the  ulti- 
mate victory  will  belong  to  him.  This  truth  we  hold  to-day. 
The  imagery  in  which  this  truth  is  clothed  is  of  no  especial 
interest  to  us  now.  It  is  nothing  but  the  drapery  appro- 
priate to  that  time  and  place,  and  all  in  which  we  are  inter- 
ested to-day  is  the  body  of  truth  from  which  this  drapery 
may  be  stripped,  as  no  longer  useful  but  rather  as  hinder- 
ing our  perception  of  the  things  which  abide.  What  was 
helpful  to  the  Oriental  of  two  thousand  years  ago  may  be 
harmful  to  us.  No  one  can  deny  that  great  harm  has 
resulted  from  the  attempt  to  interpret  apocalyptical  symbols 
literally  and  to  deduce  doctrines  and  dates  from  the  details 
of  apocalyptical  imagery.26  Many  of  these  were  pure 
poetry  in  the  beginning.  All  of  them  may  be  disregarded 
in  the  Christian  life  and  activity  of  to-day.     Apocalypse, 


26  1  Thess.  4.  18. 

26  For  a  graphic  description  of  the  Millerite  and  Doomsealer  excite- 
ments, see  the  author's  article  on  "A  Study  of  a  Pauline  Apocalypse," 
Biblical  World,  xxxvii,  pp.  163-175,  from  which  some  of  this  discussion 
has  been  reproduced. 


178  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

as  such,  has  no  place  in  modern  literature.  Apocalypse,  as 
such,  has  no  significance  to  modern  thought.  The  truths 
it  taught  may  abide  after  it  has  passed  away. 

V.  The  Main  Lessons 

i.  We  have  the  apostle's  sanction  for  the  application  of 
all  previous  prophecy  and  apocalypse  to  our  own  times. 
Paul  follows  the  main  lines  of  the  Master's  eschatological 
discourse,  as  recorded  in  Matt.  24.  4-51.  He  had  some 
suggestions  from  Daniel  and  from  other  Old  Testament 
prophets.  He  doubtless  was  acquainted  with  some  of  the 
more  recent  apocalyptical  literature  of  the  Jews.  All  these 
things  had  influenced  his  thought.  He  saw  the  fulfillment 
of  some  of  them  in  the  events  of  his  own  day.  He  appro- 
priated them  to  the  explanation  of  the  present  and  the 
future.  The  general  conflict  between  good  and  evil  goes 
on  in  every  new  age.  The  men  of  that  age  have  the  right 
to  study  the  signs  of  the  times  and  to  apply  all  of  the  scrip- 
tural revelation  to  the  interpretation  of  them.  The  study 
of  the  Word  and  the  study  of  the  world  ought  to  go  hand 
in  hand,  and  they  ought  to  help  each  other. 

2.  No  study  of  prophecy  or  apocalypse  or  the  signs  of 
the  times  ought  to  disturb  the  serenity  of  our  faith  or  the 
orderliness  of  either  our  private  or  our  church  life.  The 
best  way  to  prepare  for  the  coming  of  our  Lord  is  in  the 
faithful  performance  of  the  common  duties  of  each  day. 
That  was  the  spirit  of  Saint  Francis  de  Sales,  who  was 
playing  a  game  of  whist  when  some  one  asked  him  what  he 
would  do  if  Christ  were  at  hand,  and  who  replied,  "I  would 
finish  the  game;  for  his  glory  I  began  it."  That  was  the 
spirit  of  that  old  Puritan  who  when  the  Dark  Day  came 
unexpectedly  upon  them  and  some  one  in  great  alarm 
moved  that  the  assembly  should  at  once  adjourn,  inasmuch 
as  it  would  seem  that  the  Judgment  Day  had  come,  arose 
in  his  place  and  said:  "If  this  be  indeed  the  Judgment  Day, 
it  cannot  find  us  better  employed  in   any  respect  than   in 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  179 

quietly  doing  our  duty.  I  move  that  the  candles  be  lighted." 
That  was  the  spirit  of  the  Puritan  Parson  Carter,  of  whom 
we  are  told  that  he  once  called  unexpectedly  upon  a  member 
of  his  church  who  was  hard  at  work  in  a  tanyard,  for  he 
was  a  tanner.  When  the  minister  tapped  him  on  the 
shoulder,  the  man  turned  in  surprise  and  apologized  for 
being  so  employed.  And  the  parson  said,  "Let  Christ  when 
he  cometh  find  me  so  doing."  "What,"  said  the  man  look- 
ing down  at  his  dirty  hands  and  clothes,  "doing  this?" 
"Yes,"  said  the  parson,  "faithfully  fulfilling  the  duties  of 
my  calling."  Do  we  believe  in  the  second  coming  of  the 
Lord?  Then  we  ought  to  go  on  about  our  business,  faith- 
fully fulfilling  the  duties  of  our  calling.  If  I  were  a  wood 
sawyer  and  I  believed  in  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord,' 
I  would  go  on  sawing  wood ;  and  when  the  Lord  came 
I  would  believe  that  he  would  be  better  pleased  with  me  if 
he  found  me  there  faithfully  sawing  away  at  the  wood  than 
if  I  were  sitting  down  with  a  Bible  in  my  hand  and  were 
trying  to  figure  out  from  the  book  of  Revelation  just  when 
the  Lord  would  appear. 

That  was  the  faith  of  John  Wesley.  A  lady  once  said 
to  him,  "If  you  knew  that  the  Lord  would  come  at  twelve 
o'clock  to-morrow  night,  how  would  you  spend  the  inter- 
vening time  ?"  The  tradition  is  that  John  Wesley  answered : 
"I  would  spend  the  intervening  time  just  as  I  intend  to 
spend  it.  I  would  preach  to-night  at  Gloucester,  and  again 
to-morrow  morning.  After  that  I  would  ride  to  Tewkes- 
bury, preach  in  the  afternoon,  and  meet  the  society  in  the 
evening.  I  should  then  go  to  Friend  Martin's  house,  as  he 
expects  to  entertain  me.  I  would  converse,  pray  with  the 
family,  retire  to  my  room  at  ten  o'clock,  commend  myself 
to  my  heavenly  Father,  go  sound  asleep,  and  wake  up  in 
glory."  That  was  the  Pauline  attitude  toward  this  question. 
Paul  believed  in  the  speedy  advent  of  the  Lord  from  heaven, 
but  he  went  about  his  work  every  day  just  the  same.  We 
have  no  objection  to  people  who  believe  in  the  close  ap- 


180  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

proach  of  the  end  of  all  things,  if  they  hold  that  doctrine  in 
the  same  sane  and  sensible  fashion. 

One  may  believe  in  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord  with- 
out feeling  any  necessity  for  taking  the  doctrine  and  shak- 
ing it  in  people's  faces  until  they  get  scared  into  good 
behavior  or  wrought  up  into  a  great  nervous  and  religious 
excitement.  One  may  believe  in  the  second  coming  of  the 
Lord  and  not  believe  that  it  is  necessary  to  waste  a  single 
moment  in  the  morning  in  flattening  his  nose  against  the 
windowpane  to  see  if  the  skies  are  reddening  with  the 
approach  of  the  King.  One  may  believe  in  the  second  com- 
ing of  the  Lord  and  not  spend  any  time  in  painfully  cal- 
culating from  the  symbolic  numbers  and  the  apocalyptic 
figures  of  the  Bible  the  exact  date  upon  which  he  may  be 
expected  to  come.  Wiser  men  than  we  are  have  made  tre- 
mendous fools  of  themselves  in  doing  that.  The  Lord 
some  how  or  other  has  failed  persistently  to  keep  the  dates 
they  have  appointed  for  him.  Again  and  again  it  has  been 
proven  from  the  Bible  tfiat  the  Lord  would  surely  come  in 
the  next  ten  years ;  but  the  decades  and  the  centuries  have 
gone  by  and  the  Lord  has  not  come.  Dates  are  even  now 
being  prophesied  with  all  the  assurance  of  divine  authority, 
placing  the  advent  of  the  Lord  in  the  next  few  years.  It 
is  a  little  comfort  to  us  people  who  have  not  much  faith 
in  these  prophecies  that  they  differ  so  conspicuously  among 
themselves  in  the  dates  they  determine.  However,  if  they 
should  agree  to  agree,  we  would  not  believe  them  still;  for 
we  know  that  the  date  of  the  Lord's  coming  is  not  down  in 
the  time-table.  We  believe  that  he  will  not  come  for  long 
centuries  yet.  We  know  that  he  will  come  in  God's  own 
time. 

3.  The  proper  attitude  to  maintain  in  reference  to  the 
second  coming  of  the  Lord  is  not  that  of  excited  anticipa- 
tion of  an  immediate  catastrophe,  but  that  of  the  faithful 
performance  of  daily  duties  and  quiet  waiting  for  the  full- 
ness of  the  times.    In  the  first  epistle  Paul  had  declared  that 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  181 

the  Thessalonians  had  turned  from  idols  unto  God  to  do 
two  things,  to  serve  the  living  and  true  God  and  to  wait  for 
his  Son  from  heaven.27  That  is  a  good  definition  of  the 
Christian's  calling  to-day.  Active  service  and  patient  wait- 
ing are  better  than  any  amount  of  fuming  and  fretting  and 
overhaste  and  overzeal.  Here  in  the  second  epistle  Paul 
prays  for  the  Thessalonians  that  the  Lord  may  direct  their 
hearts  into  the  love  of  God  and  into  the  patience  of  Christ.28 
The  love  of  God  will  manifest  itself  in  ceaseless  effort  for 
the  good  of  man.  The  patience  of  Christ  will  wait  for  the 
appointed  hour  in  steadfast  faith  and  in  perfect  submission. 
It  will  not  complain  when  hopes  are  disappointed.  It  will 
not  lose  heart  when  there  are  unexpected  delays.  It  will  go 
on  in  the  way  of  faithful  service,  sure  that  in  the  end  it  will 
be  clear  that  all  things  have  been  administered  for  the 
best. 

We  may  believe  that  Paul  was  mistaken  in  his  expecta- 
tion of  the  speedy  Second  Advent  of  the  Lord.  After 
nineteen  centuries  of  waiting  we  know  that  he  was  mis- 
taken, if  he  expected  it  in  his  generation  or  in  his  century. 
We  think  the  sufficient  warrant  for  his  expectation  was  to 
be  found  in  the  belief  of  all  the  other  apostles  and  in  the 
traditional  teaching  of  the  Master  himself.  We  think  that 
it  is  wholly  to  Paul's  credit  that  he  held  to  this  doctrine  of 
the  immediate  Second  Advent  with  such  sanity  of  conduct 
and  such  common  sense  in  personal  behavior  and  public 
exhortation.  If  all  Second  Adventists  had  held  their  creed 
with  the  same  undisturbed  serenity  of  personal  experience 
and  unbroken  continuity  of  Christian  service,  they  would 
have  caused  no  trouble  in  the  church.  It  is  against  the  idle- 
ness of  some  and  the  excited  fanaticism  of  others  that  Paul 
here  makes  his  protest.  If  we  rule  these  things  out,  then 
we  may  serve  the  living  God  and  wait  for  his  Son  from 
heaven,  with  all  the  patience  of  Christ  who  sits  on  heaven's 

27 1  Thess.  i.  10. 
28  2  Thess.  3.  5. 


182  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

throne  expecting  that  every  knee  will  bow  and  every  tongue 
confess  his  majesty  in  due  time. 

These  are  the  main  lessons  of  these  two  epistles:  (i) 
Study  the  signs  of  the  times  and  apply  all  scriptural  truths 
to  them  as  far  as  such  application  may  be  allowable  or 
profitable;  (2)  Work  faithfully  all  the  time,  no  matter 
what  the  particular  signs  of  the  times  may  be;  (3)  Wait 
patiently,  even  though  the  Lord's  coming  seem  long  delayed, 
in  confident  faith  that  it  surely  will  come  in  the  end. 

VI.  Some  Minor  Lessons 

1.  There  is  a  gospel  of  work  in  this  epistle.  Paul  says, 
"Yourselves  know  how  ye  ought  to  imitate  us :  .  .  .  for 
we  did  not  eat  bread  for  nought  at  any  man's  hand,  but  we 
labored  and  travailed,  zvorking  night  and  day,  that  we 
might  not  burden  any  of  you.  .  .  .  Even  when  we  were 
with  you,  this  we  commanded  you,  If  any  will  not  zvork, 
neither  let  him  eat.  We  hear  of  some  that  zvork  not  at  all. 
Now  them  that  are  such  we  command  and  exhort  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  with  quietness  they  zvork,  and  eat 
their  own  bread."  2a  In  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ! 
Jesus  was  a  worker.  Day  after  day  he  labored  hard  in  the 
carpenter's  shop.  All  labor  has  been  glorified  by  the  sweat 
on  that  carpenter's  brow.  When  the  poor  people  and  the 
day  laborers  rest  from  their  labors  and  gather  in  glad 
reunion  before  God's  throne,  the  Master  Workman  stand- 
ing at  the  head  of  the  throng  will  be  God's  Son.  They  will 
be  at  home  with  him  there  because  he  was  at  home  with 
them  here. 

Is  anyone  waiting  for  the  appearing  of  the  Son  of  God 
from  heaven?  Let  him  not  wait  in  idleness,  for  Jesus  was 
one  of  the  workers  and  only  those  who  are  like  him  shall 
see  him  as  he  is.  An  idle  man  cannot  be  a  Christian. 
An  idle  man  is  no  follower  of  Christ.     An  idle  man  has 


2»  2  Thess.  3.  7,  8,  10-12 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  183 

no  place  in  the  Kingdom.  Paul  says  that  an  idle  man  has 
no  right  to  live!  If  he  will  not  work,  let  him  not  eat! 
Starve  him  to  death,  and  the  sooner  the  better!  That 
sounds  like  rather  severe  doctrine,  but  it  is  Paul's  doctrine. 
He  thinks  that  all  the  idle  rich  and  all  the  idle  poor  ought 
to  have  their  food  supply  cut  off  at  once.  He  prescribes 
starvation  for  incorrigible  and  criminal  idleness  in  any  rank 
of  society.  It  will  either  kill  or  cure,  and  the  world  will  be 
better  off  in  the  end  in  either  case.  It  is  the  New  Testament 
gospel  of  work.  "The  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work" 
— that  was  a  part  of  the  Master's  message  to  men.  It  is 
in  work  that  man  comes  nearest  to  Christ  and  nearest  to 
God. 

Among  the  Sayings  of  Jesus  recently  discovered  in  Egypt 
is  this  striking  one :  "Raise  the  stone,  and  there  thou 
shalt  find  me;  cleave  the  wood,  and  there  am  I."  Jesus 
often  reveals  himself  to  quarrymen  and  to  woodchoppers 
when  he  is  hidden  from  the  wise  and  the  prudent  whose 
hands  never  are  hardened  with  toil.  A  certain  carpenter 
named  Jesus  and  a  certain  weaver  and  tentmaker  named 
Paul  came  preaching  this  gospel  of  work.  It  was  a  shame 
to  be  idle  in  this  workaday  world.  Idleness  led  to  that 
greater  shame  of  dependence  upon  another's  bounty  for 
bread.  Paul  prescribed  death  to  the  drones,  death  by  star- 
vation. He  said  that  bread  belonged  to  those  who  would 
busy  themselves  to  make  it  or  earn  it.  He  said  the  loafer 
ought  to  go  without  his  loaf.  Jesus  and  Paul  worked  with 
their  hands  and  with  their  heads  and  with  their  hearts. 
They  worked  night  and  day,  because  there  was  a  night  com- 
ing in  which  no  man  could  work.  They  ate  sparingly,  but 
they  worked  unsparingly,  that  they  might  have  to  give  to 
other's  need.  It  is  a  part  of  the  Christian  gospel,  the  gospel 
of  work. 

2.  In  2.  10  Paul  declares  that  the  indispensable  preliminary 
to  salvation  is  the  love  of  the  truth.  "They  received  not 
the  love  of  the  truth,  that  they  might  be  saved."     It  was 


1 84  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

not  necessary  that  their  creed  should  be  perfect  or  complete. 
It  was  not  necessary  that  they  should  be  superior  to  all  mis- 
understanding or  mistake.  It  zvas  necessary  that  they  should 
desire  the  truth  above  everything  else.  It  zvas  necessary 
that  they  should  love  the  truth  with  a  perfect  love.  The 
love  of  the  truth  would  save  a  man,  even  if  he  attained  to 
but  an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  truth  itself.  The  love  of 
truth  determined  his  character.  The  amount  of  truth  he 
possessed  might  have  been  determined  for  him  by  his  oppor- 
tunities or  his  environment.  If  he  had  received  the  love  of 
the  truth,  and  if  he  held  stoutly  to  it,  he  was  sure  of  salva- 
tion, even  though  he  might  live  and  die  a  devoted  adherent 
of  some  distortion  of  the  truth  which  he  mistook  for  the 
truth  itself.  If  he  loved  the  truth,  he  might  believe  a  lie 
and  be  saved.  The  hopeless  thing  was  not  to  receive  the 
love  of  the  truth  and  so  to  be  given  over  to  the  belief  in  a 
lie.  There  may  be  the  same  love  of  the  truth  among  the 
followers  of  many  different  standards  of  faith ;  and  if  there 
is,  they  all  have  the  same  surety  of  salvation.  There  may 
be  two  believers  in  one  and  the  same  lie ;  and  in  the  heart  of 
the  one  there  may  be  the  love  of  the  truth  and  in  the  heart 
of  the  other  there  may  be  a  hatred  of  the  truth.  Then  of 
those  two  believers  in  a  lie  the  one  shall  be  saved  and  the 
other  shall  be  lost.  Their  creed  may  have  been  identical ; 
their  characters  were  radically  different.  To  have  the  truth 
is  desirable;  to  love  the  truth  is  essential.  It  is  the  indis- 
pensable prerequisite  to  salvation. 

3.  Notice  Paul's  thanksgiving  in  2.  13,  14.  It  sweeps  the 
whole  horizon  from  eternity  past  through  all  eternity  to 
come.  He  is  thankful  for  God's  choice  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world.  God  made  the  world  because  he 
intended  to  save  the  world.  Then  Paul  is  thankful  for  the 
gospel  and  for  the  means  it  furnishes  unto  salvation  in  the 
sanctification  of  the  Spirit  and  the  belief  of  the  truth. 
Finally  he  is  thankful  for  the  goal  set  before  us,  in  the 
obtaining  of  the  glory  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.     There  is 


SECOND  THESSALONIANS  185 

a   whole  system  of  theology  in  these  verses,  and  it  is  a 
wholesome,  whole-hearted,  and  broad-visioned  theology. 

VII.  Some  Facts  Concerning  the  Second  Epistle 

1.  This  is  the  shortest  epistle  in  the  New  Testament 
addressed  to  a  church. 

2.  The  word  "law"  does  not  occur  in  this  epistle,  as  it 
did  not  in  the  first  epistle. 

3.  The  cross  is  not  once  mentioned  in  this  epistle,  and 
the  death  of  Christ  is  mentioned  only  once. 

4.  In  3.  6,  14,  15  we  have  the  first  mention  of  actual 
church  discipline  in  the  New  Testament  literature.  If  any 
man  walk  disorderly  and  fail  in  obedience  to  the  apostolic 
command,  the  Christians  are  to  have  no  company  with  him. 
They  are  to  withdraw  from  his  fellowship,  but  not  to  cast 
him  off  as  an  enemy.  He  was  to  be  admonished  and  labored 
with  still  as  a  brother  beloved,  but  disciplined  for  his  own 
good. 

5.  The  autograph  salutation  occurs  in  3.  17,  and  Paul  says 
that  his  autograph  is  the  token  in  every  epistle  he  writes. 
This  may  be  an  indication  of  the  existence  of  forged  epistles 
at  this  time,  against  the  acceptance  of  which  his  own  hand- 
writing would  safeguard  them.  The  language  seems  to 
indicate  a  number  of  genuine  epistles,  and  since  we  know 
of  only  one  preceding  this  we  must  conclude  that  Paul's 
correspondence  was  much  larger  than  that  which  we  now 
possess. 

VIII.  Genuineness  of  the  Epistle 

Some  critics  who  accept  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thes- 
salonians  as  authentic  are  disposed  to  reject  the  second 
epistle,  chiefly  upon  the  ground  of  supposed  inconsistencies 
with  the  teaching  of  the  first  epistle.  Among  these  are 
Hausrath,  Holtzmann,  Pfleiderer.  Weizsacker,  and  von 
Soden.  The  external  evidence  for  the  second  epistle  is 
better  than  that  for  the  first.    Justin  Martyr  clearly  refers 


1 86  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

to  the  passage  concerning  the  Man  of  Sin.  Polycarp 
alludes  to  the  epistle.  Irenseus  refers  to  it  by  name. 
It  is  also  cited  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Tertullian. 
It  is  in  the  canon  of  Marcion  and  in  that  of  the  Muratorian 
Fragment.  It  is  found  in  the  Old  Latin  and  the  Syrian 
versions.  Upon  these  grounds  most  of  the  English  scholars 
have  been  led  to  favor  its  genuineness ;  and  so  have  Renan, 
Reuss,  Godet,  Weiss,  Sabatier,  Julicher,  Gloel,  Klopper, 
Rousset,  Lipsius,  and  Zahn.  The  epistle  never  was  ques- 
tioned in  the  early  church.  All  the  doubts  concerning  it 
arose  in  the  nineteenth  century;  and  they  do  not  seem  to 
be  well  established.  From  the  internal  evidence  it  is  as  easy 
to  argue  for  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  as  against  it. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  FIRST  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS 

I.  The  City  of  Corinth  and  the  Corinthians 

i.  The  Situation.  The  peninsula  of  Greece  has  a  most 
remarkable  coast  line.  There  is  not  another  like  it  any- 
where. The  continent  of  Africa  is  an  almost  solid  mass. 
Africa  has  only  one  mile  of  coast  line  for  every  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-three  square  miles  of  surface.  The  con- 
tinent of  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  runs  out  on  all  sides 
into  great  peninsulas,  and  has  one  mile  of  coast  line  for 
every  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  square  miles  of  surface. 
As  the  configuration  of  Europe  contrasts  with  that  of 
Africa,  the  configuration  of  Greece  contrasts  with  and  sur- 
passes in  its  complexity  even  that  of  Europe.  The  coast 
of  Greece  is  a  continuous  succession  of  bays,  pressing  in 
upon  the  land  at  every  possible  point  from  the  east  and  the 
west  and  the  south.  Everywhere  peninsulas  run  out  into 
the  sea ;  everywhere  the  sea  thrusts  itself  in  between  these 
projecting  points  of  land.  Half  the  size  of  Portugal,  Greece 
has  a  coast  line  greater  than  Spain  and  Portugal  together. 
The  sea  is  on  every  side  of  the  land  and  in  every  part  of 
the  land.  There  is  not  a  foot  of  land  in  Greece  which  is 
forty  miles  from  the  sea. 

At  one  place  the  opposing  tides  nearly  have  cut  the  land 
in  two.  An  isthmus  only  four  miles  wide  in  its  narrowest 
dimension  joins  the  Peloponnesus  to  Hellas  proper.  All 
intercourse  by  land  from  the  north  to  the  south  must  pass 
through  this  point.  The  Saronic  gulf  lies  on  the  east  and 
the  Corinthian  gulf  lies  on  the  west.  They  afford  good 
harborage  for  vessels.     The  seas  about  the,  southern  coast 

189 


iqo  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  Greece  are  swept  almost  continually  with  storms,  and 
the  voyage  through  them  always  is  a  dangerous  one.  It  was 
inevitable,  therefore,  that  the  commerce  from  the  east  to 
the  west  should  tend  to  run  directly  from  Ephesus  to  this 
Isthmus  and  then  on  to  Rome,  and  to  the  commerce  of  the 
Mediterranean  the  isthmus  was  as  important  as  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama  will  be  to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  A  com- 
mercial city  was  sure  to  spring  up  at  this  point.  Two  sea- 
port towns,  famous  in  history,  were  established  on  either 
side  of  the  isthmus — Lechaeum  on  the  west  and  Cenchrea; 
on  the  east.  On  the  broadening  southern  end  of  the  isthmus 
a  precipitous  rock  rose  eighteen  hundred  feet  above  the 
plain,  its  sides  almost  inaccessible.  It  was  a  natural  citadel, 
like  Gibraltar,  and  about  its  feet  a  great  city  grew.  Horace 
calls  it  "the  two-sea'd  Corinth,"1  for  with  its  two  harbor 
towns  Corinth  commanded  the  entire  isthmus  and  had  a 
hand  on  either  sea. 

The  ports  were  filled  with  ships  of  every  size  and  from 
every  clime.  The  smaller  vessels  were  rolled  across  the 
narrow  strip  of  land  on  wheels.  The  larger  vessels  were 
unloaded  and  their  cargo  was  transferred  on  the  backs  of 
porters  or  by  beasts  of  burden  or  in  wagons  to  the  other 
coast.  The  great  rock  overlooking  it  all  was  called  the 
Acrocorinthus.  Mounting  to  its  top,  one  could  see  at  a 
single  glance  the  whole  of  the  city  with  its  swarming 
markets  and  streets,  both  harbors  with  their  many  sails  and 
the  steady  stream  of  merchandise  and  traffic  uniting  the 
two,  and  the  sparkling  blue  waters  of  the  Ionian  and  the 
Mgean  Seas.  To  the  south  stretched  the  mountain  ranges 
of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  to  the  north,  just  forty-five  miles 
away,  rose  that  other  famous  rock  overlooking  the  still 
more  famous  city,  the  Acropolis  at  Athens.  In  the  far  dis- 
tance could  be  seen  the  snow-crowned  hills  of  Thessaly. 
On  the  isthmus  below  stood  the  shrine  of  Poseidon,  and 


1  Ode  I,  7.  2,  "bimaris  Corinthus." 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  191 

there  was  the  Stadium,  where  every  three  years  all  Greece 
gathered  to  the  celebration  of  the  Isthmian  games.  It  was  a 
great  commercial  center,  given  over  to  the  making  of  money 
and  the  enjoyment  of  physical  life.  It  had  more  than  half 
a  million  people  in  it  when  Paul  the  apostle  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  first  saw  it.  There  probably  were  two  hundred 
thousand  freemen  and  twice  as  many  slaves. 

2.  The  Old  and  New  City.  The  city  into  which  Paul 
entered  was  not  the  ancient  city  of  Corinth  which  had  been 
called  the  "light  and  ornament  of  Greece."  That  Corinth 
had  been  the  capital  of  the  Doric  states  and  the  head  of  the 
Achaean  league.  Its  praises  had  been  sung  by  Pindar  and 
its  influence  had  been  described  by  Thucydides.  It  had 
been  wholly  destroyed  by  Lucius  Mummius,  the  Roman 
general,  B.  C.  146.  For  a  hundred  years  nothing  but  ruins 
had  been  left  of  it.  The  devastating  fires  of  the  Roman 
soldiers  had  consumed  all  the  wood,  hay,  stubble  of  the 
ancient  constructions,  but  many  of  the  marbles  and  the 
precious  statues  and  columns  and  cornices  had  been 
unburned  and  unbroken,  and  after  lying  in  the  ruins  for 
a  century  they  either  had  been  rescued  and  restored  to  their 
former  positions  or  they  had  been  used  in  the  building  of 
the  new  city  of  Corinth,  whose  foundations  were  laid  by 
Julius  Caesar  in  B.  C.  46.  Csesar  called  it  Colonia  Julia 
Corinthus.     He  colonized  it  with  veterans  and  freedmen. 

The  growth  of  the  new  city  was  almost  as  rapid  as  that 
of  Chicago  has  been.  The  yEgean  and  the  Ionian  Seas 
contributed  to  its  wealth.  The  popular  route  from  east  to 
west  ran  this  way.  It  was  quite  customary  for  passengers 
to  break  their  sea  voyage  by  disembarking  at  one  of  the 
seaports  on  the  isthmus  and  visiting  Corinth  on  their  way 
to  the  other.  It  soon  outstripped  Athens  in  size  and  became 
in  some  respects  the  most  important  city  of  Greece.  It  was 
made  the  capital  of  the  Roman  province  of  Achaia.  As 
the  center  of  government  and  the  seat  of  commerce, 
unrivaled  in  wealth  and  in  size,  Corinth  was  the  place  where 


192  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

any  new  movement,  once  established,  would  be  sure  to  exert 
an  influence  over  the  whole  land.  It  was  the  residence  of  a 
Roman  proconsul,  and,  of  course,  the  dominant  political  and 
civic  influence  was  Roman.  Many  other  peoples,  however, 
were  to  be  found  in  its  streets.  Asiatics  had  come  over 
from  Ephesus.  The  Jews  had  been  attracted  by  the  pros- 
pects of  rapid  money-making,  and  they  were  here  in  suffi- 
cient numbers  to  have  their  synagogue.  The  Greeks  be- 
longed to  this  soil,  and  they  had  made  Corinth  a  Greek  city 
in  its  spirit  and  customs. 

3.  Reputation  for  Profligacy.  With  these  various  nation- 
alities, with  no  traditions,  with  no  aristocracy,  a  mushroom 
city  with  no  higher  aim  than  the  making  of  money  and  the 
exploiting  of  pleasures  and  the  enjoyment  of  life,  Corinth 
soon  established  a  reputation  for  profligacy  which  was 
unrivaled  in  the  ancient  world.  Chrysostom  said  it  was 
"the  most  licentious  city  of  all  that  are  or  ever  have 
been."  Farrar  has  pronounced  Corinth  "the  Vanity  Fair  of 
the  Roman  empire;  at  once  the  London  and  the  Paris  of  the 
first  century  after  Christianity.  In  the  Gentile  world  it  was 
famous-infamous  for  dishonesty,  debauchery,  and  drunk- 
enness." 2 

Another  modern  writer  has  compared  Corinth  "to  an 
amalgam  of  Newmarket,  Chicago,  and  Paris.  It  had  the 
worst  features  of  each,  all  mixed  together.  At  night  its 
streets  were  hideous  with  the  brawls  and  lewd  songs  of 
drunken  revelry.  In  the  daytime  its  markets  and  squares 
swarmed  with  Jewish  peddlers,  foreign  traders,  sailors, 
soldiers,  athletes  in  training,  boxers,  wrestlers,  charioteers, 
racing  men,  betting  men,  courtesans,  slaves,  idlers,  and  par- 
asites of  every  description — a  veritable  pandemonium. 
Even  in  that  old  world  the  evil  name  of  the  city  was  pro- 
verbial. To  accuse  a  man  of  behaving  as  'a  Corinthian' 
was  to  accuse  him  of  leading  a  low,  shameless,  and  immoral 


2  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  210. 


•     FIRST  CORINTHIANS  193 

life.  It  is  said  that  no  Corinthian  name  celebrated  in  liter- 
ature, arts,  or  philosophy,  occurs  in  all  the  annals  of 
Greece."  3  "A  Corinthian  banquet"  was  a  drunken  revel. 
"A  Corinthian  drinker"  was  a  sot.  "To  live  like  a  Corin- 
thian" was  to  live  a  dissolute  life.  These  proverbial  phrases 
stamped  upon  world  literature  the  ancient  reputation  of  the 
city  for  all  that  was  bad  and  utterly  vile.4  The  vices  of 
the  Orient  and  the  Occident  seemed  to  center  here.  The 
reasons  for  this  fact  are  apparent. 

(1)  There  was  a  large  floating  population  in  Corinth  at 
all  times.  Its  streets  were  thronged  with  sailors  from  the 
east  and  the  west,  and  sailors  notoriously  are  a  dissolute 
lot  when  they  are  on  shore.  All  the  restraints  of  temper- 
ance enforced  on  shipboard  are  thrown  aside  when  the 
sailor  is  set  free  at  the  end  of  the  voyage.  Frequently  his 
wages  are  paid  him  in  a  lump  sum  at  that  time  and  he  pro- 
ceeds at  once  to  spend  them  in  one  grand  spree.  There 
always  are  plenty  of  people  watching  for  an  opportunity 
to  help  him  get  rid  of  his  money,  and  the  reward  of  months 
of  labor  often  is  dissipated  in  a  single  night  or  in  a  few  days. 
The  sailor  has  only  an  occasional  opportunity  to  be  dissolute, 
and  he  is  dissolute  with  an  abandon  that  the  landsman  sel- 
dom attains.  Corinth  had  the  sailors  of  two  seas  thronging 
its  streets  all  the  time.  Then  there  were  the  other  strangers 
who  passed  through  Corinth,  coming  from  all  other  parts 
of  the  world  and  tarrying  here  just  long  enough  to  taste 
of  its  pleasures.  After  the  tedium  of  a  sea  voyage  they 
were  ready  for  a  revel.  Away  from  all  the  restraints  of 
home  and  among  strangers,  they  were  the  more  likely  to 
indulge  in  all  vices.  It  is  the  complaint  of  Christian  pastors 
to-day  that  their  people  who  go  to  summer  resorts  are  not 
faithful  to  church  attendance  and  to  religious  duties  as  they 


3  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  130. 

4  Shakespeare,  "A  Corinthian,  a  lad  of  mettle"  (1  Henry  IV,  ii,  4). 
Scott,  "Who  is  this  gallant,  honest  Mike? — is  he  a  Corinthian — a  cutter 
like  thyself?"     (Kenilworth,  hi.) 


194  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

are  at  home,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  are  prone  to  indulgence 
in  questionable  amusements  and  doubtful  practices  with 
which  they  would  have  nothing  to  do  when  surrounded  by 
their  neighbors  and  friends.  It  also  is  said  that  Americans 
upon  the  Continent  live  a  freer  life  than  they  do  at  home. 
If  these  things  are  true  to-day,  and  among  Christian  people, 
how  much  more  would  they  be  true  in  the  ancient  day  and 
among  the  heathen  peoples  in  Corinth? 

(2)  The  vast  majority  of  the  population  in  Corinth  was 
a  slave  population.  The  slaves  outnumbered  the  freemen 
two  to  one.  We  know  how  such  a  situation  in  America 
naturally  led  to  licentiousness.  Our  slaves  were  black, 
and  black  is  not  an  attractive  color.  Yet  the  unnumbered 
mulattos,  quadroons,  and  octoroons  in  America  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  debasing  influence  of  the  institution  of  slavery 
upon  the  morals  of  the  dominant  class.  So  far  as  the  slaves 
are  brutalized  themselves  their  habits  and  examples  are 
vicious.  So  far  as  their  masters  exploit  them  for  the  satis- 
faction of  their  own  passions  both  masters  and  slaves  are 
involved  in  a  common  moral  ruin. 

(3)  The  religion  of  the  city  was  the  chief  aid  to  sensual- 
ity. On  the  Acrocorinthus  stood  the  temple  of  Aphrodite 
Pandemos.  She  was  the  guardian  goddess  of  the  city.  In 
her  temple  were  one  thousand  women  who  were  profes- 
sional prostitutes.  They  were  the  Ierodouloi,  the  priest- 
esses of  Aphrodite,  the  goddess  of  lust  and  love.  Their 
service  was  a  service  of  impurity.  They  indulged  in  las- 
civious dances  in  the  public  festivals.  Commerce  with  these 
priestesses  in  the  temple  was  regarded  as  a  religious  conse- 
cration. The  cult  of  the  goddess  was  Oriental  rather  than 
Greek  in  its  gross  sensuality.  The  rites  of  the  Syrian 
Astarte  had  been  imported  to  Europe  and  established  on 
these  Corinthian  heights.  The  city  which  grew  up  in  asso- 
ciation with  these  rites  was  a  city  of  uncleanness  and  sen- 
sual sin.  It  was  filled  with  idolaters  who  were  fornicators, 
adulterers,    effeminate,    abusers    of    themselves    with    men, 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  195 

thieves,  covetous,  drunkards,  revilers,  and  extortioners.5 
The  civilization  of  Corinth  was  one  which  was  corrupt  and 
decaying,  even  while  it  was  gilded  and  gay.  It  was  to  the 
Christians  of  Corinth  that  Paul  wrote  his  most  earnest 
and  most  scathing  prohibitions  of  personal  sensuality.6  He 
knew  the  constant  temptation  there  was  in  their  environ- 
ment. He  said  to  them  that  if  they  were  to  cut  themselves 
off  altogether  from  fornicators  and  extortioners  and  idol- 
aters they  would  have  to  get  out  of  that  world  in  which  they 
lived  in  Corinth." 

Paul  was  resident  there  when  he  wrote  that  awful  descrip- 
tion of  the  sensuality  of  the  pagan  world,  found  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  It  was  a  sketch 
from  life  which  he  was  penning.  He  put  down  what  he 
saw  in  the  streets  of  Corinth  every  day.  "God  gave  them 
up  in  the  lusts  of  their  hearts  unto  uncleanness,  that  their 
bodies  should  be  dishonored  among  themselves.  .  .  .  God 
gave  them  up  unto  vile  passions :  for  their  women  changed 
the  natural  use  into  that  which  is  against  nature :  and  like- 
wise also  the  men,  leaving  the  natural  use  of  the  woman, 
burned  in  their  lust  one  toward  another,  men  with  men 
working  unseemliness,  and  receiving  in  themselves  that 
recompense  of  their  error  which  was  due.  .  .  .  God  gave 
them  over  unto  a  reprobate  mind,  to  do  those  things  which 
are  not  fitting ;  being  filled  with  all  unrighteousness,  wicked- 
ness, covetousness,  maliciousness;  full  of  envy,  murder, 
strife,  deceit,  malignity;  whisperers,  backbiters,  hateful  to 
God,  insolent,  haughty,  boastful,  inventors  of  evil  things, 
disobedient  to  parents,  without  understanding,  covenant- 
breakers,  without  natural  affection,  unmerciful :  who,  know- 
ing the  ordinance  of  God,  that  they  who  practice  such  things 
are  worthy  of  death,  not  only  do  the  same,  but  also  consent 
with  them  who  practice  them."  8    We  think  as  we  read  this 


6 1  Cor.  6.  9,  10. 

6  I  Cor.  5.  1;  6.  9-20;   10.  7,  8;  2  Cor.  6.  14;  7.  1. 

7  1  Cor.  5.  10.  8Rom.  1.  24-32. 


196  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

indictment  that  it  must  be  rhetorically  extravagant.  It  did 
not  seem  so  to  Paul,  for  every  day  on  the  streets  of  Corinth 
he  had  seen  the  patent  proofs  of  these  things. 

4.  Its  Philosophy.  Together  with  all  this  corruption  of 
morals  there  was  the  cultivation  of  a  superficial  and  cynical 
philosophy.  Corinth  kept  up  a  pretense  to  great  culture. 
It  had  a  host  of  halls  of  rhetoric  and  schools  of  philosophy. 
One  ancient  historian  says  that  you  could  not  take  a  step 
in  the  streets  of  Corinth  without  meeting  a  sage. 

Pindar  saw  the  first  city  of  Corinth  in  the  height  of  its 
glory.  Paul  saw  the  second  city  of  Corinth  in  the  heyday 
of  its  power.  The  modern  city  of  Corinth  has  no  reminder 
of  the  splendor  of  the  ancient  times.  In  185 1  Lewin  found 
there  only  forty  or  fifty  wretched  houses.  In  the  last  half 
century  its  condition  has  improved  and  it  has  some  eight 
thousand  inhabitants  to-day.  "But  all  traces  of  its  former 
glory  have  been  swept  away.  Wherever  else  one  may  find 
the  famed  Corinthian  pillars,  it  is  not  in  Corinth.  Only 
a  few  massive  Doric  columns  still  stand  like  solemn  monu- 
ments of  the  mighty  past.  Beyond  these,  and  earth  and  sea 
and  sky,  there  is  nothing  on  which  we  can  say  the  eyes  of 
the  apostle  rested."  9 

II.  The  Founding  of  the  Christian  Church 

"Ecclesia  Dei  in  Corintho,  lactum  et  ingcns  paradoxen. 
— The  Church  of  God  in  the  city  of  Corinth,  a  joyous  and 
a  great  paradox  !"  It  is  a  sentence  of  Bengel  in  his  Gnomon. 
Corinth  was  a  moral  cesspool.  Into  this  sink  of  iniquity 
the  gospel  message  was  cast,  as  the  prophet  threw  a  branch 
into  the  bitter  waters  to  sweeten  them,  and  a  Christian 
Church  was  founded  and  flourished  even  there !  It  is  one 
of  the  wonders  of  church  history,  a  wonder  which  has  been 
repeated  many  times  since,  and  which  every  time  it  occurs 
is  a  proof  of  the  supernatural  power  in  our  gospel. 


9  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  127. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  197 

1.  Paul's  Arrival.  From  Athens  Paul  came  down  to 
Corinth.  Fie  landed  at  Cenchreae  and  probably  walked  the 
eight  or  nine  miles  to  the  city.  Just  outside  the  city  walls, 
in  the  cypress  grove  of  the  cemetery,  he  may  have  seen  the 
tomb  of  Lais,  that  most  famous  courtesan  of  Corinth,  and 
have  wondered  whether  the  stone  lioness  with  the  sheep  in 
her  claws  was  a  fit  symbol  of  the  terrible  and  ruthless  power 
of  sensual  sin.  At  the  gate  stood  the  monument  of  Dio- 
genes, the  cynic,  whose  philosophy  was  well  suited  to  the 
city's  lustful  and  shallow  life.  Paul  searched  first  for  lodg- 
ings and  remunerative  labor.  He  found  both  in  the  home 
of  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  who  were  tentmakers  like  himself 
and  who  had  come  recently  from  Rome.  They  were  con- 
vinced and  converted  by  Paul's  life  and  speech  and  soon 
became  devoted  Christians.  With  them  he  wrought  through 
the  week  and  on  the  Sabbath  he  reasoned  in  the  synagogue, 
until  he  had  established  a  reputation  there  as  an  able  and 
persuasive  speaker.  When  Silas  and  Timothy  came  down 
from  Macedonia  and  joined  Paul  here  in  Corinth,  Paul 
began  to  speak  more  plainly  concerning  the  Christian  faith. 
The  Jews  soon  raised  most  strenuous  objection,  and  Paul 
left  the  synagogue  and  set  up  a  rival  conventicle  in  a  house 
near  by. 

2.  The  Church  Members.  The  seceders  from  the  syn- 
agogue had  a  respectable  standing  from  the  very  first,  for 
Crispus,  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue,  went  with  them  with 
all  of  his  family;  and  Titus  Justus,  whose  home  was  opened 
to  their  assembly;  and  Aquila  and  Priscilla,  who  were 
people  of  considerable  force  of  character.  Other  house- 
holders, like  Chloe  and  Stephanas;  and  Gaius,  who  was  a 
man  of  means  and  great  hospitality,  entertaining  Paul  and 
the  whole  church;  and  Erastus,  the  treasurer  of  the  city, 
soon  joined  them.  Doubtless  there  were  others  of  consid- 
erable wealth  and  influence;  but  the  majority  of  the  church 
was  made  up  of  poor  and  uncultured  people,  some  from 
the  middle  class  and  more  from  the  slave  population.     All 


t98  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

social  positions  seem  to  have  been  represented ;  but  not 
many  wise  and  not  many  noble  were  called. 

Paul  labored  here  a  year  and  six  months — a  longer  time 
than  he  had  stayed  in  any  other  of  his  mission  fields.  Was 
it  because  he  believed  that  the  need  was  greater  here  than 
in  any  other  city  he  had  visited?  Before  the  end  of  the 
eighteen  months  the  church  in  Corinth  was  the  largest  to 
which  Paul  had  ministered.  How  many  there  were  in  it 
we  do  not  know,  but  it  seems  probable  that  the  membership 
had  mounted  into  the  hundreds  at  least.  We  saw  in  Thes- 
salonica  how  rapidly  a  Christian  church  was  formed  in  a 
heathen  community.  If  the  growth  of  the  church  in  Corinth 
was  of  proportional  rapidity,  in  three  times  the  length  of 
stay  the  church  ought  to  have  become  at  least  three  times 
as  large.  We  know  that  at  last  the  Jews  of  Corinth  became 
alarmed  at  the  inroads  of  the  new  religion  and  they  arose 
with  one  accord  and  seized  Paul  and  brought  him  before 
the  judgment  seat  of  Gallio,  the  Roman  proconsul. 

3.  Paul  and  Gallio.  It  was  one  of  the  dramatic  scenes 
of  history,  Paul,  the  greatest  man  in  Corinth,  before  the 
judgment  seat  of  Gallio,  the  greatest  civic  authority.  The 
pathos  and  the  humor  of  the  scene  lies  in  the  fact  that  Gallio 
was  all  unconscious  of  the  greatest  opportunity  of  his 
life,  and  he  thought  that  Paul  was  a  Jewish  workman  of 
whom  he  never  had  heard  before  and  of  whom  no  one 
ever  would  hear  again.  It  never  entered  his  mind  that  day 
that  Paul  would  be  known  to  millions  who  never  would  hear 
of  Gallio  except  in  his  connection  with  Paul's  trial.  This 
Gallio  was  the  most  popular  member  of  a  most  distinguished 
family.  He  was  the  brother  of  Seneca,  the  famous  courtier 
and  philosopher.  He  was  the  uncle  of  Lucan,  the  author 
of  the  great  epic,  the  Pharsalia.  Gallio  himself  was  a 
patron  of  the  arts,  a  lover  of  good  literature,  and  a  most 
gracious  representative  of  Roman  courtesy  and  Greek 
culture.  He  was  beloved  by  rich  and  poor  alike.  He 
chatted  with  the  sailors  about  the  wind  and  weather.     He 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  199 

conversed  with  the  philosophers  on  terms  of  perfect 
equality.  He  was  genial,  unaffected,  and  deservedly  pop- 
ular. Seneca  said  of  him,  "Even  those  who  love  my  brother 
Gallio  to  the  very  utmost  of  their  power  yet  do  not  love 
him  enough."  He  had  so  many  good  qualities  that  we  might 
have  coveted  him  for  the  Christian  faith.  Had  he  gotten 
acquainted  with  Paul  and  become  a  convert  to  the  new  reli- 
gion, it  would  have  saved  him  at  least  from  the  suicide 
which  ended  his  days  when  his  family  had  been  ruined  in 
its  plot  against  Nero.  This  was  the  man  who  refused  to 
hear  Paul  speak  or  to  consider  the  matter  presented  to  him 
by  the  Jews  as  soon  as  he  discovered  that  it  was  an  affair 
of  their  religion  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  administra- 
tion of  the  state. 

"A  strange  thing!"  says  Renan.  "Behold,  on  the  one 
hand,  one  of  the  most  intellectual  and  inquiring  of  men, 
and,  on  the  other,  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  original 
souls  of  his  age,  and  yet  they  passed  without  either  affect- 
ing the  other.  .  .  .  The  man  of  society,  with  his  frivolous 
disdain,  continually  passes  without  knowing  it  the  man  who 
is  about  to  create  the  future :  they  are  not  of  the  same  world  ; 
and  the  common  error  of  people  of  society  is  to  think  that 
the  world  in  which  they  move  is  the  only  world  which 
exists."10  Gallio  in  the  proconsul's  palace  never  had  heard 
of  this  new  religious  movement  in  the  ghetto  district  and 
among  the  slave  population,  it  may  be;  or  if  he  had  heard 
of  the  conversion  of  Erastus,  the  city  treasurer,  he  had  not 
been  sufficiently  interested  to  suppose  for  one  moment  that 
the  faith  Erastus  had  espoused  was  different  in  any  essential 
respect  from  the  host  of  other  religions  represented  in 
Corinth.  In  this  cosmopolitan  city  people  were  passing 
continually  from  one  religious  faith  to  another,  and  he  did 
not  hear  that  any  of  them  had  found  any  greater  satisfac- 
tion in  one  than  in  another.     How  should  he  imagine  that 

10  St.  Paul,  p.  225. 


2oo  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

this  faith  preached  by  Paul  was  to  turn  the  world  upside 
down,  was  to  capture  the  Roman  empire  in  time,  was  to 
drive  out  all  these  other  religions,  and  was  to  dominate  the 
civilized  globe?  He  never  suspected  it.  It  was  a  squabble 
among  some  Jewish  sectaries  about  points  concerning 
their  law.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  he  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  He  was  not  minded  to  be  a  judge 
in  such  matters.  They  were  beneath  his  interest  and 
beneath  his  dignity.  He  turned  them  away,  and  the  mob 
laid  hold  on  Sosthenes,  the  ruler  of  the  synagogue  and  the 
ringleader  of  the  opposition  to  Paul,  and  they  beat  him 
before  the  judgment  seat,  rightly  judging  that  Gallio  would 
not  concern  himself  to  protect  Sosthenes  any  more  than 
Paul. 

4.  Sosthenes.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  begins 
with  these  words,  "Paul,  called  to  be  an  apostle  of  Jesus 
Christ  through  the  will  of  God,  and  Sosthenes  our  brother, 
unto  the  church  of  God  which  is  at  Corinth."  n  This  is  the 
only  other  occurrence  of  the  name  Sosthenes  in  the  New 
Testament.  Can  it  be  that  the  Sosthenes  of  the  eighteenth 
chapter  of  Acts,  the  Sosthenes  who  was  the  ruler  of  the  syn- 
agogue in  Corinth  and  the  prosecutor  of  Paul  in  that  city, 
is  the  Sosthenes  "our  brother,"  whom  Paul  joins  with  him 
in  writing  this  first  epistle?  Like  Paul  himself,  was  he 
first  a  persecutor  of  the  Christian  faith  and  then  a  devoted 
adherent?  It  is  possible.  If  Sosthenes  had  been  converted 
and  was  now  with  Paul  in  Ephesus,  Paul,  remembering  the 
former  influence  and  position  of  this  ruler  of  the  synagogue 
among  the  Jews  of  Corinth,  would  be  likely  to  associate 
their  two  names  in  the  superscription  of  the  epistle. 

5.  Paul's  Itinerary.  Some  time  after  the  experience 
with  Gallio  Paul  left  Corinth  and  went  to  Ephesus.  There 
the  brethren  asked  him  to  abide  with  them.  He  thought 
he  could  not  at  that  time  and,  promising  to  return,  he  went 

11  1  Cor.  1.  1,  2. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  201 

to  Caesarea  and  on  to  Antioch.  After  spending  some  time 
here  he  started  out  for  a  third  time  upon  a  missionary 
journey  from  this  headquarters.  He  traveled  through 
Galatia  and  Phrygia  and  so  came  again  to  Ephesus.  In 
Ephesus  he  remained  more  than  two  years,  and  while  there 
he  must  have  kept  himself  pretty  well  informed  concern- 
ing the  church  in  Corinth.  Commercial  intercourse  between 
the  two  cities  was  so  constant  that  Paul  must  have  met 
many  of  the  Corinthian  church  members  in  Ephesus  and 
still  larger  numbers  of  those  who  knew  more  or  less  about 
the  condition  of  affairs  there.  From  the  reports  given  by 
these  visitors  to  Ephesus  Paul  gathered  much  of  encour- 
agement and  also  much  that  was  disquieting.  This  led  him 
into  some  correspondence  with  the  church  at  Corinth,  and 
this  correspondence  led  to  our  first  epistle. 

III.  The  Occasion  of  the  First  Epistle 

1.  Apollos  came  from  Corinth  to  Ephesus  and  reported 
the  state  of  the  church  there.  Doubtless  there  were  many 
others  who  confirmed  his  statements,  but  his  was  the  most 
official  information  Paul  had  received.  Apollos  was  sure 
that  there  were  some  backsliders  and  an  increasing  tendency 
toward  impurity  of  life  on  the  part  of  others. 

2.  Paul  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Corinthians,  one  of  the 
Pauline  letters  which  have  been  lost.  We  call  this  epistle 
the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  it  is  the  first  in 
our  canon,  and  the  first  of  which  we  have  any  direct  knowl- 
edge;  but  in  this  first  epistle  we  read,  "I  wrote  unto  you  in 
my  epistle  to  have  no  company  with  fornicators."  12  Evi- 
dently, Paul  had  written  an  epistle  before  this,  an  epistle 
which  has  been  lost.  All  that  we  know  about  it  we  gather 
from  indirect  suggestions  in  the  epistle  we  have.  We  con- 
clude that  there  were  at  least  three  subjects  discussed  in  this 
former  communication :  ( 1 )  Paul's  proposed  visit  to  them, 

12 1  Cor.  5.  9. 


202  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

(2)  a  collection  to  be  taken  up  for  the  poor  saints  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  (3)  directions  about  their  relations  with  the 
impure  idolaters  with  whom  they  were  surrounded  in 
Corinth. 

3.  The  Corinthians  answered  this  letter.  We  think  we 
can  be  sure  of  two  things  in  their  epistle — its  spirit  and 
its  questioning.  The  epistle  has  been  lost,  and  we  only  can 
guess  at  its  contents  from  indications  in  Paul's  reply.1'1 
Reading  between  the  lines  in  this  first  epistle,  we  gather 
that  the  letter  of  the  Corinthians  had  been  full  of  the  spirit 
of  boasting  and  self-congratulation.  They  were  puffed  up 
over  their  spiritual  gifts,  and  they  were  vaunting  their  spir- 
itual wisdom.  They  had  an  overplus  of  self-assurance. 
Yet  they  condescended  to  ask  Paul's  opinion  concerning 
certain  matters.  It  was  not  at  all  certain  that  his  opinion 
would  have  much  weight  with  people  who  had  such  a  good 
opinion  of  themselves.  Yet  they  were  willing  to  hear  what 
he  had  to  say  on  these  subjects,  and  they  asked  him  to  send 
his  opinion  in  writing. 

The  following  questions  were  being  discussed  among 
themselves : 

( 1 )  Which  was  better  for  the  Christians,  the  married 
life  or  the  celibate  life?  Should  widows  or  widowers  ever 
marry  again?  Should  a  Christian  ever  marry  a  heathen? 
If  a  Christian  were  already  married  to  a  heathen,  and  the 
heathen  husband  or  wife  would  not  be  converted,  ought  the 
Christians  to  continue  to  live  with  their  married  mates? 
Ought  they  not  to  separate?  Had  not  Paul  written  that 
they  must  break  company  with  fornicators,  and  was  not 
heathenism  in  Corinth  a  consecrated  fornication?  I  low 
about  the  young  people?  Was  it  not  better  that  the  young 
women  should  remain  virgins  in  Christ?  Could  a  Christian 
father  with  a  clear  conscience  give  his  daughter  in  marriage 
to  either  a  heathen  or  a  Christian  ?    These  were  very  prac- 

13  Pindlay  has  made  a  very  ingenious  reproduction  of  the  epistle 
from  the  Corinthians,  in  the  Expositor,  VI,  i,  401  407. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  203 

tical  questions  in  such  a  city  as  Corinth.  Not  a  month 
could  pass  by  there,  and  scarcely  a  week  or  a  day,  without 
some  one  of  them  coming  up  and  clamoring  for  immediate 
settlement. 

(2)  How  about  the  relation  between  master  and  slave? 
Could  a  Christian  slave  serve  a  heathen  master?  How 
could  he  remain  a  Christian  and  maintain  this  relationship? 

(3)  Another  very  practical  question  was  that  concerning 
meat  offered  to  idols.  All  might  agree  that  it  was  wrong 
to  offer  meats  or  anything  else  to  idols,  but  was  it  wrong 
to  eat  the  meat  which  had  been  thus  offered?  It  was  pre- 
sented for  sale  in  the  markets ;  was  it  wrong  to  buy  such 
meat,  to  carry  it  home  and  consume  it  there?  It  was  used 
in  public  festivals;  could  a  Christian  take  part  in  a  festival 
when  this  meat  was  set  on  the  table?  It  was  likely  to  be 
in  any  private  home;  was  a  Christian  to  refuse  to  sit  down 
to  any  banquet  to  which  he  had  been  invited  until  he  had 
asked  where  the  meat  came  from  and  had  been  assured  that 
it  never  had  had  any  connection  with  the  heathen  worship? 
This  would  be  very  embarrassing  on  many  occasions.  Must 
a  Christian  be  a  spoil-feast  and  a  boor  in  order  to  keep  his 
hands  and  his  conscience  clean  in  this  matter?  Must  he 
sacrifice  all  social  life  outside  the  church  or  must  he  sacri- 
fice some  of  his  conscientious  scruples?  It  was  the  old 
question  either  of  uncompromising  adherence  to  principles, 
and  of  consequent  social  ostracism,  or  of  social  adaptation  in 
minor  matters  in  order  to  maintain  friendly  relations  and 
the  possibility  of  further  intercourse  and  missionary  labors. 

(4)  There  was  much  difference  of  opinion  as  to  decorum 
in  public  services.  Should  the  men  come  to  church  with 
their  heads  covered  or  uncovered?  The  Jews  had  been 
accustomed  to  wear  the  tallith  on  their  heads  when  reading 
or  speaking  in  the  synagogue,  and  they  said  that  was  the 
only  proper  custom  in  the  Christian  service.  The  Greeks, 
on  the  other  hand,  always  had  been  accustomed  to  enter 
the  temple  of  the  god  bareheaded,  and  they  saw  no  reason 


204  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

why  they  should  approach  God  the  Father  or  Jesus  his  Son 
in  any  less  reverent  fashion.  What  should  they  do  about  it? 
Should  the  Christians  follow  the  Jewish  custom  or  the 
Greek?  How  about  the  women?  How  about  their  heads 
and  how  about  their  tongues  ?  Was  it  proper  for  a  woman 
to  speak  or  to  teach  in  a  public  assembly?  If  she  did  so, 
ought  she  to  speak  or  teach  with  uncovered  head? 

(5)  Had  Paul  any  definite  plans  to  suggest  concerning 
the  proposed  collection? 

(6)  Was  Apollos  coming  back  to  Corinth,  and  when? 
4.  This  letter  was  brought  to  Paul,  and  would  have  been 

a  sufficient  occasion  in  itself  for  the  writing  of  our  first 
epistle.  However,  Paul  had  heard  many  things  about  the 
church  in  Corinth  which  were  not  mentioned  in  their  letter, 
and  he  had  these  things  in  mind  when  he  sat  down  to 
answer  them.  Some  of  the  things  he  had  heard  seemed  to 
him  of  far  greater  importance  than  the  things  about  which 
they  had  inquired,  and  he  gives  more  space  to  the  discussion 
of  them  in  his  reply. 

(1)  Certain  members  of  the  household  of  Chloe  had 
told  him  that  contentions  had  sprung  up  among  the  church 
members,  and  the  church  was  being  divided  into  rival 
camps  with  rival  champions  and  rival  standards  of  doc- 
trine and  life.  There  were  at  least  three  parties,  and 
there  may  have  been  four.  We  think  there  were  four; 
for  if  those  who  said,  "We  are  of  Christ,"  simply  refused 
to  enroll  themselves  with  any  one  of  the  other  three  parties, 
that  would  have  separated  them  from  the  other  camps,  and 
in  proportion  to  the  compactness  of  these  bodies  they  would 
have  found  themselves  isolated  perforce.  In  all  probability, 
however,  they  were  not  protestants  against  the  forming  of 
factions  in  the  church,  but  the  most  radical  and  persistent 
factionaries  among  them.  Therefore  we  suppose  that  there 
were  four  well-defined  parties  in  the  Corinthian  church, 
and  we  can  guess  with  some  assurance  as  to  their  complex- 
ion and  differences. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  205 

First,  there  were  the  Paulinists.  We  credit  them  with 
loyalty  to  the  founder  of  the  church  and  to  all  of  his  teach- 
ings. They  believed  in  his  authority  and  were  satisfied  with 
his  theology. 

SeCond,  there  were  the  Apollonians.  They  prided  them- 
selves upon  their  subtleties  in  the  exegesis  of  the  Scripture. 
They  professed  to  enjoy  a  deeper  insight  into  the  Christian 
mysteries.  They  claimed  to  understand  and  to  be  able  to 
expound  Christianity  as  a  world  philosophy.  They  be- 
longed to  the  wise.  They  boasted  of  their  culture.  They 
had  great  pleasure  in  eloquent  periods  and  rhetorical  presen- 
tations of  the  truth.  They  thought  that  Apollos  was  a  much 
more  impressive  orator  than  Paul,  and  they  believed  that 
the  Alexandrian  philosophy  in  its  synthesis  of  revealed  and 
heathen  truth  was  the  highest  reach  of  human  wisdom. 
They  wanted  their  preachers  to  be  oratorical  and  philosoph- 
ical, and  they  were  sure  that  that  would  be  the  only  way 
in  which  they  could  appeal  to  the  better  classes  and  could 
reach  and  convert  the  people  of  Corinth. 

Third,  there  were  the  Cephians.  Their  chief  authority 
was  not  Paul  nor  Apollos,  but  Peter ;  and  since  they  called 
him  by  that  Hebrew  name  "Cephas,"  we  may  suppose  that 
they  themselves  were  Hebrews,  and  probably  Hebrews  from 
Palestine.  They  were  prone  to  insist  upon  primal  apostolic 
authority.  Peter  had  founded  the  Christian  Church  at  that 
first  Pentecost.  The  gift  of  tongues  on  that  occasion  was 
a  proof  of  its  spirituality  and  the  same  gift  was  to  be 
coveted  and  possessed  by  the  most  spiritual  still.  This 
Paul  and  this  Apollos  were  of  the  second  rank  in  the  church. 
They  had  come  into  it  much  later.  They  were  entirely  too 
free  from  the  ecclesiastical  authority  represented  by  the 
primitive  apostles.  Neither  Cephas  nor  any  other  of  them 
was  disposed  to  concede  such  privileges  and  immunities  to 
the  Gentiles  as  Paul  and  Apollos  did.  This  party  was 
the  center  of  the  anti-Pauline  propaganda  in  the  church, 
and  it  verily  believed  that  it  was  doing  the  church  and  the 


2o6  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Christ  a  service  in  its  vigorous  protest  against  Paul's  unau- 
thorized innovations. 

Fourth,  there  were  the  Christians.  The  very  fact  that 
they  adopted  this  name  as  their  exclusive  property  might 
indicate  that  they  were  the  most  narrow  and  intolerant  of 
the  factions  in  Corinth.  There  is  an  assumption  and  arro- 
gance in  the  appropriation  of  the  title  which  speaks  ill  for 
their  breadth  of  spirit  or  sympathy.  They  boasted  that 
they  did  not  take  their  theology  from  any  human  teacher, 
like  Cephas  or  Paul  or  Apollos,  but  only  from  the  Lord. 
Godet  thinks  that  some  of  them  were  docetists,  and  dis- 
tinguished between  the  human  Jesus  and  the  divine  Christ. 
The  cry,  "Jesus  be  anathema !"  14  expressed  their  abhor- 
rence of  the  worship  which  recognized  any  authority  "after 
the  flesh."  Probably  they  were  Judaizers  with  a  vengeance 
and  arrogated  a  higher  even  than  apostolic  authority,  and 
preached  the  superior  purity  of  the  celibate  state  as  that 
to  which  the  Christ  had  given  the  authority  of  his  example. 
There  was  no  orthodoxy  like  unto  their  orthodoxy.  They 
were  supreme  in  piety.  They  were  the  simon-pure  Chris- 
tians, the  unadulterated  article,  the  uncontaminated  remnant 
who  represented  the  true  faith  in  the  world.  They  were 
harder  to  get  along  with  than  any  of  the  others.  They 
measured  themselves  by  themselves  and  compared  them- 
selves with  themselves  and  commended  themselves  and 
despised  others. 

(2)  A  second  matter  of  public  scandal  had  arisen  among 
the  church  members  in  Corinth  and  had  been  reported  to 
Paul.  Differences  of  opinion  had  led  to  differences  in  pro- 
cedure, and  these  in  turn  had  led  to  open  quarrels,  and  these 
quarrels  had  resulted  in  lawsuits  before  the  heathen  tri- 
bunals. They  did  not  trust  each  other  enough  to  have  such 
affairs  settled  by  arbitration  or  judgment  among  themselves. 
They  carried  them  to  outsiders  for  their  final  disposition, 

14  1  Cor.  12.  3. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  207 

and  the  outside  world  was  apt  to  conclude  that  these  Chris- 
tians did  not  love  each  other.  They  were  good  fighters 
and  haters  instead.  It  was  a  disgrace  to  their  profession 
to  have  constant  resort  to  the  courts  of  the  heathen  and  to 
have  constant  reason  for  such  resort. 

(3)  Paul  heard  that  the  public  meetings  of  the  church 
were  disturbed  by  fanatical  outbursts  of  religious  frenzy 
and  irreligious  antagonisms  of  speech  and  of  creed. 
Women  harangued  the  assembly  with  uncovered  heads. 
Sometimes  many  men  and  women  were  talking  at  once,  and 
evidently  they  tried  to  outtalk  or  to  outshout  each  other. 
There  were  ecstatic  utterances  under  supposed  divine  control 
and  therefore  by  divine  authority  interrupting  the  proceed- 
ings. Blasphemous  phrases  had  been  heard  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, and  angry  ejaculations  were  common.  There 
was  speaking  with  tongues,  and  it  frequently  happened  that 
many  were  speaking  with  tongues  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
and  the  din  became  indescribable  and  the  jargon  was  unap- 
prehensible,  and  many  thought  that  the  service  was  more 
like  a  meeting  of  maniacs  than  a  service  of  worship  to  the 
true  God.  There  was  noise  and  disorder  where  there  ought 
to  have  been  peace  and  preaching  unto  edification. 

(4)  Paul  heard  that  these  glossolalias  were  regarded  by 
some  as  the  highest  possible  proof  of  spirituality,  and  that 
people  were  striving  for  the  possession  of  these  ecstatic 
gifts  who  were  less  concerned  about  faith,  hope,  and  love, 
the  common  Christian  graces  and  the  fundamental  moral- 
ities. 

(5)  He  was  told  again  that  certain  people  thought  that 
the  resurrection  was  past  and  gone.  It  was  a  spiritual  expe- 
rience and  Christians  looked  back  to  it  and  not  forward  in 
anticipation  of  it.  There  would  be  no  resurrection  of  the 
dead.  The  resurrection  from  spiritual  death  into  spiritual 
life  was  the  only  one  the  Christian  would  know.  It  was  a 
deadly  heresy,  wholly  subversive  of  the  Christian  faith;  yet 
there  were  those  in  Corinth  who  maintained  it. 


208  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

(6)  The  Corinthians  were  famous  for  drunkenness  and 
some  of  the  Christian  Corinthians  still  became  drunken 
occasionally,  and  Paul  heard  with  sorrow  that  some  of  them 
sometimes  became  drunken  at  the  love  feasts  of  the  church. 
They  called  these  church  festivals  love  feasts,  and  they 
went  through  the  form  of  breaking  bread  together  in  peace 
and  love  as  the  Pentecostal  brethren  did ;  but  some  of  those 
who  made  profession  of  Christian  fellowship  and  church 
brotherhood  on  these  occasions  at  the  same  time  engaged  in 
lawsuits  with  each  other.  They  were  insincere  and  hypo- 
critical in  their  manifestations  of  affection  for  each  other; 
and  their  common  meal  was  a  pretense  rather  than  a  reality, 
for  the  rich  brought  ample  provisions  with  them  to  these 
feasts  and  gorged  themselves,  while  the  poor  looked  on 
and  envied  them  and  themselves  were  not  fed.  Hypocrisy, 
gluttony,  and  drunkenness  at  the  very  table  of  the  Lord ! 
Could  there  be  anything  worse  than  that  in  any  church  of 
Christ? 

(7)  There  was  one  thing  still  worse.  Some  of  the  mem- 
bers had  been  guilty  of  sensual  sins ;  and  one  offender  had 
become  so  notorious  that  even  the  heathen  Corinthians  con- 
sidered his  conduct  a  public  scandal,  and  yet  the  church 
seemed  disposed  to  condone  it.  A  certain  man  was  living 
with  his  father's  wife  in  open  adultery!  The  father  was  a 
heathen  and  the  woman  was  a  heathen,  but  the  stepson  who 
maintained  this  incestuous  relation  was  a  professing  Chris- 
tian !  Such  a  relationship  was  forbidden  by  the  Jewish  law 
under  penalty  of  death.  The  Roman  law  equally  con- 
demned it.  Was  it  conceivable  that  the  Christian  Church 
would  allow  it?  Yet  for  some  reason  this  man  was  toler- 
ated in  the  church  in  Corinth.  Was  it  because  he  was  a 
heavy  contributor  to  church  expenses?  Was  it  because  of 
the  intercession  of  influential  friends?  Was  it  because  no 
one  cared  to  take  the  initiative  in  a  church  prosecution? 
We  do  not  know.  It  seems  almost  inconceivable  to  us  that 
such  a  scandal  could  have  been  tolerated  for  a  moment. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  209 

Did  the  earlier  portion  of  this  study  picture  the  city  of 
Corinth  in  rather  dark  colors  as  the  most  lascivious  city 
of  the  ancient  world?  The  present  study  has  pictured  the 
church  in  Corinth  in  much  the  same  colors.  The  church 
seems  to  have  been  affected  by  its  environment.  Let  us 
now  summarize  the  suggestions  furnished  by  these  ques- 
tions and  rumors  and  try  to  make  out  of  them  a  coherent 
picture  of  this  Pauline  church,  recently  formed  out  of  the 
Judaism  and  the  heathenism  of  Corinth. 

IV.  An  Inside  View  of  the  Church 

1.  Its  meetingplace  is  not  in  a  church  building  but  in 
a  large  room  in  a  private  house  or  in  an  old  business  room 
turned  into  an  assembly  hall.  The  heathen  have  their 
magnificent  temples.  The  Jews  have  their  synagogue  with 
all  the  accustomed  paraphernalia  of  their  religious  worship. 
This  Christian  meetingplace  is  absolutely  void  of  ecclesias- 
tical architecture  or  furnishing.  It  is  a  plain  room  with 
seats,  and  arrangements  have  been  made  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  long  table  for  the  feast.  All  of  the  appointments 
suggest  the  home  or  the  public  hall  rather  than  a  church. 

2.  The  time  of  meeting  is  in  the  evening  of  the  first  day 
of  the  week.  There  are  no  other  religious  meetings  at  this 
time,  so  that  the  noise  of  the  city's  traffic  and  revelry  is 
heard  in  the  streets  outside.  The  Christians  come  from 
various  quarters  of  the  city  and  they  pass  through  throngs 
of  their  old  companions  and  friends  who  are  bent  on  busi- 
ness or  pleasure  and  who  frequently  invite  them  to  join 
again  in  their  pursuits.  There  is  no  holy  Sabbath  quiet 
anywhere  to  remind  them  that  it  is  time  to  worship  or  to 
help  them  in  spiritual  meditation.  Some  of  them  come  to 
the  meeting  heated  from  their  daily  labor  and  excited  by 
some  altercation.  They  step  out  of  a  pandemonium  of  Cor- 
inthian noises  into  a  service  which  may  be  a  pandemonium 
of  excited  speeches  before  long. 

3.  Now  that  they  are  gathering,  let  us  notice  something 


210  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  the  strange  assortment  of  their  costumes  and  character. 
Here  are  some  Jews  who  enter  with  their  heads  covered 
and  sit  with  their  heads  covered  through  the  whole  service. 
Here  are  some  Greeks  who  come  in  and  who  sit  bareheaded. 
Here  are  some  women  who  are  veiled  and  some  who  are 
unveiled,  some  who  cover  their  heads  and  some  who 
uncover  them.  Here  are  some  well-to-do  people  in  the  gar- 
ments of  the  rich.  Here  are  more  in  the  rags  of  the  poor. 
Here  are  some  with  the  ring  of  the  Roman  freedman  upon 
their  fingers.  Here  are  others  who  evidently  are  slaves. 
The  clothes  are  not  all  clean.  The  faces  are  not  all  refined. 
Some  bear  the  marks  of  prolonged  dissipation.  Some  are 
defaced  with  the  scars  of  former  brawls,  and  some  are  cruel 
with  the  lines  of  inherited  selfishness  and  extortion.  Paul 
remembered  their  appearance  when  he  wrote,  "Neither 
fornicators,  nor  idolaters,  nor  adulterers,  nor  effeminate, 
nor  abusers  of  themselves  with  men,  nor  thieves,  nor  covet- 
ous, nor  drunkards,  nor  revilers,  nor  extortioners,  shall 
inherit  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  such  were  some  of  you : 
but  ye  were  washed,  but  ye  were  sanctified,  but  ye  were 
justified  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the 
Spirit  of  our  God."  15  Converted  thieves  and  prostitutes 
and  drunkards  and  extortioners  some  of  them  were,  but 
only  some.  These  transformed  reprobates  were  numerous 
enough  to  make  the  church  a  marvel  in  its  own  eyes  and  in 
the  eyes  of  others.  The  news  of  their  conversion  had  been 
carried  far  and  wide,  and  many  people  had  been  attracted 
to  these  Christian  services,  just  to  see  and  hear  them. 
There  were  many  others  who  always  had  lived  moral  and 
upright  lives :  Jews  who  had  kept  the  whole  law  from  their 
youth  up ;  Syrians  who  had  prided  themselves  on  their 
purity  of  conversation  and  conduct ;  women  whose  whole 
nature  revolted  from  uncleanness  of  any  kind.  Men  and 
women,    freemen    and    slaves,    young    and    old,    Romans, 

16 1  Cor.  6.  9-1 1. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  211 

Greeks,  Jews,  Asiatics — surely  nowhere  else  in  Corinth 
was  there  such  an  admixture  of  races  and  customs  and 
conditions  with  such  unity  of  spirit  and  purpose  and  life. 

4.  The  order  of  exercises  was  an  indeterminate  one. 
When  no  apostolic  leader  was  present  the  utmost  freedom 
prevailed.  Anyone  might  lead  in  song  or  in  prayer  at  any 
time.  Anyone  who  felt  capable  or  was  so  inspired  could 
address  the  meeting  on  any  theme.  Speaking  with  tongues 
was  given  the  right  of  way ;  and  if  several  spoke  with 
tongues  at  one  and  the  same  time,  it  was  allowable.  No  one 
felt  authorized  to  interfere  with  any  manifestation  of  the 
Spirit's  presence  with  anyone.  Sometimes  one  arose  and 
interpreted  the  strange  jargon.  Sometimes  the  one  who 
had  been  speaking  had  the  gift  of  interpretation  as  well. 
Sometimes  neither  he  nor  anyone  else  knew  what  was  being 
said.  Occasionally  some  one  was  inspired  to  preach  with 
a  strange  power  until  the  whole  assembly  was  swayed  by 
his  eloquence  and  the  unbeliever  was  convicted  of  his  sin. 
The  sick  and  suffering  were  brought  in  and  there  were 
marvelous  miracles  of  healing.  Sometimes  there  was  an 
exposition  of  Scripture  which  haunted  the  memory  for 
days.  Sometimes  there  was  teaching  in  the  fundamentals 
of  the  faith. 

There  was  great  variety  in  the  services.  One  might  begin 
with  great  quiet  and  decorum  and  close  like  a  cyclone  of 
insanity.  One  might  begin  with  an  invective  against  all 
schismatics  and  heretics  who  did  not  believe  exactly  what 
the  speaker  believed,  and  everybody  might  get  more  or  less 
on  edge  as  he  listened.  Then  some  one  might  be  guided 
graciously  to  speak  with  such  edification  that  all  spirits 
were  soothed  and  uplifted  until  they  felt  that  they  sat  in  the 
very  court  of  heaven.  There  always  was  something  doing 
in  these  services.  No  wonder  that  people  were  attracted 
to  them  and  came  and  came  again.  There  were  some  things 
which  were  disheartening  and  disgusting;  but  there  were 
other  things  which  were  very  heartening  and  interesting  and 


212  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

convincing.     People  really  were  converted  in  these  meet- 
ings.    A  church  of  God  was  being  raised  up  in  them. 

5.  When  the  public  service  was  ended  the  unbelievers 
probably  were  invited  to  leave  the  room.  Then  the  table 
was  spread,  and  the  Christians  celebrated  their  feast  of 
love  and  their  memorial  of  the  death  of  their  Lord.  Each 
brought  what  he  cared  to  or  could.  All  ate  at  the  one  table, 
and  in  some  cases  those  who  were  well  supplied  looked  out 
for  others'  needs.  Some  were  selfish  even  here.  When 
all  had  finished,  and  some  were  still  hungry  while  others 
were  drunken  or  gorged,  the  service  was  closed  and  all  went 
to  their  homes,  through  crowds  more  boisterous  than  their 
meeting  had  been  and  past  banqueting  halls  where  there  was 
far  more  and  far  worse  drunkenness  than  any  which  had 
been  seen  at  their  table.  What  conclusions  may  we  draw 
from  this  inside  view  of  the  Christian  service  at  Corinth? 

V.  Conclusions  from  this  View 

I.  The  early  church  was  not  the  ideal  church  which 
some  have  dreamed  that  it  was.  This  Corinthian  church 
was  worse  than  any  of  our  churches  to-day.  We  do  not 
need  to  pray  for  a  return  to  the  good  old  times  in  church 
history.  We  may  rejoice  that  these  times  have  been  left 
behind.  Some  have  imagined  that  the  early  church  repre- 
sented the  primitive  purity  of  Christianity  from  which  we 
have  fallen  far  away  in  these  later  days.  Our  New  Testa- 
ment does  not  lend  itself  to  any  such  delusion.  Here  in 
1  'aul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  we  find  conditions 
as  they  actually  were.  There  is  no  glossing  over  the  faults 
and  failures  of  the  church  community.  This  letter  was 
intended  by  Paul  for  the  Corinthians  alone,  and  he  had 
no  thought  that  it  would  be  read  for  centuries  to  come 
and  all  around  the  globe.  If  he  had  known  that,  he  might 
have  been  tempted  to  spare  the  Corinthians  this  portrayal 
of  their  weaknesses  and  their  crimes;  but  this  was  a 
private   correspondence.      It    was   between    Paul   and    the 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  213 

church  he  himself  had  founded.  Paul  supposed  that 
these  affairs  would  be  threshed  out  between  them  alone. 
So  he  wrote  plainly  and  without  any  reservation  and  we 
have  gained  in  historical  knowledge  while  the  Corinthians 
have  lost  in  reputation.  We  are  glad  that  this  letter  was 
written — for  their  sake,  since  it  brought  about  a  better  state 
among  them,  and  for  our  own  sake  as  well,  since  we 
know  now  that  the  golden  age  of  church  history  lies 
not  behind  us  but  before  us.  We  are  better  off  than  the 
Corinthians  were,  but  there  is  much  room  for  improve- 
ment still.  We  look  ahead  for  the  ideal  conditions,  and  we 
labor  to  bring  them  about. 

2.  We  must  not  be  led  into  a  false  conclusion  concerning 
the  quality  of  the  Corinthian  church.  We  might  suppose 
as  we  read  of  these  factions  and  jealousies  and  vanities 
and  immoralities  and  profanities  that  the  church  was  wholly 
bad.  That  would  be  a  hasty  conclusion  and  it  would  be 
false  to  the  fact.  There  were  good  people  in  Corinth,  a 
saving  remnant  who  were  sane  and  moral,  "washed  and 
sanctified  and  justified"  in  the  eyes  of  God  and  men.  We 
have  a  record  of  criticisms  for  the  most  part  in  this  epistle, 
and  all  the  faults  mentioned  actually  were  represented  in 
the  community ;  but  as  it  would  not  be  fair  to  judge  any 
modern  community  by  the  long  list  of  scandals  and  crimes 
published  in  its  newspaper,  so  in  Corinth  we  may  suppose 
that  there  were  those  who  did  not  need  criticism  and  so 
escaped  comment  at  this  time. 

3.  The  faults  of  this  church  are  in  some  instances  evi- 
dences in  themselves  of  spiritual  life,  an  exuberant,  ill- 
regulated,  undisciplined  life,  but  nevertheless  a  life  which 
demanded  expression  and  was  not  content  in  uncertainty  or 
inaction.  There  was  no  excuse  for  immoralities,  drunken- 
ness, or  profanities.  Those  were  unchristian  and  had  to  be 
rooted  out.  On  the  other  hand,  all  this  eager  questioning 
evinced  an  interest  and  a  desire  for  satisfaction  which  was 
at  the  farthest  remove  from  indifference  or  death.     All  of 


214  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

these  factions  were  made  up  of  those  who  professed  to  have 
the  truth  and  who  were  strenuous  in  its  maintenance  and 
propagandism.  All  of  these  ecstatic  experiences  were 
thought  by  those  who  had  them  to  be  a  confirmation  of  their 
personal  spiritual  life.  There  was  life  here,  but  it  needed 
to  be  directed  and  controlled.  It  needed  repression  at 
some  points  and  judicious  development  at  other  points. 
The  church  had  responded  to  the  work  of  the  evangelist. 
It  needed  now  the  careful  supervision  and  training  of  a 
wise  pastor.  That  leads  us  to  a  fourth  conclusion  in  view 
of  all  these  facts. 

4.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  surpassing  genius  of  the  apostle 
Paul  that  he  was  able  to  save  this  church  and  all  his 
churches  from  fanaticisms  and  dissolution  and  to  build 
out  of  them  a  world-conquering  Christianity.  "No  saner 
or  more  commanding  intellect  ever  headed  a  complex  and 
difficult  movement.  ...  It  was  a  happy  circumstance  for 
the  future  of  Christianity  that  in  those  early  days,  when 
there  were  almost  as  many  wild  suggestions  and  foolish 
opinions  as  there  were  converts,  there  should  have  been  in 
the  church  this  one  clear,  practical  judgment,  this  pure 
embodiment  of  the  wisdom  of  Christianity."  16 

"A  strange  Christianity  that  of  the  Corinthian  church 
must  have  been  at  the  time  the  first  epistle  was  written— 
a  Christianity  of  which  we  scarcely  can  form  a  conception : 
a  mixture  of  lofty  ideas  dimly  apprehended  with  the  weak 
and  beggarly  elements  of  the  world,  of  Jewish  theology, 
Pauline  mysticism,  and  the  Alexandrian  speculations  and 
allegorizing  of  Apollos,  of  conflicting  notions  as  to  the 
flesh  and  the  Spirit,  continence  and  license,  marriage  and 
celibacy,  circumcision  and  uncircumcision,  the  authority  of 
Paul  and  that  of  Jerusalem,  theism  and  polytheism ;  a 
conflict  of  old  customs  and  habits  with  new  principles  half 
understood,  of  the  puffed-up   spirit  of   self-assertion   and 


16  Dods,  Commentary  on  First  Corinthians,  pp.  352,  356. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  215 

dogmatism  with  the  modesty  that  waits  to  be  instructed, 
of  the  sense  of  decorum  with  the  loud  demand  for  the  un- 
veiled prophesying  of  the  women,  of  a  sound  feeling  of 
the  fitness  of  things  with  a  heathenish  glee  and  gluttony 
at  the  Supper  of  the  Lord;  and  a  babel  of  a  many-voiced 
speaking  with  a  tongue,  which  led  the  looker-on  to  think 
the  church  was  mad.  The  situation  might  well  dishearten 
as  brave  and  great  a  man  as  Paul,  not  only  as  to  local 
success,  but  also  as  to  the  entire  future  of  the  cause  of 
Christ.  Who  could  have  foreseen  that  out  of  such  crude- 
ness  and  elemental  fermentation  could  come  the  Christen- 
dom of  the  twentieth  century?  It  needed  the  courage,  the 
hope,  the  divine  patience  of  the  great  apostle,  the  sure  insight 
and  faith  of  a  religious  genius,  who  looks  upon  the  things 
that  are  not  seen,  to  undertake  the  mighty  task  of  bringing 
order  out  of  this  chaos.  Not  by  violence  and  rough  com- 
pulsion could  the  task  be  achieved,  but  only  by  the  ideal 
and  by  the  love  that  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things. 
He  who  could  at  the  same  time  assert  authority  and  charm 
with  the  spirit  of  Christ  might  venture.  This  Paul  could 
do,  and  he  has  left  us  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
as  an  evidence  of  his  skill  and  mastery."  17 

Into  the  witches'  cauldron  at  Corinth  Paul  dropped  this 
epistle,  and  its  boiling  and  bubbling  gradually  was  quieted. 
The  church  in  Corinth  came  through  its  crisis  even  as  the 
church  in  Thessalonica  had.  The  sanity  of  the  apostle's 
judgment  asserted  itself.  His  decision  of  all  mooted  ques- 
tions was  approved  more  and  more  in  the  study  of  events 
and  the  process  of  time.  His  principles  have  vindicated 
themselves  in  the  light  of  the  centuries.  Universal  Chris- 
tianity indorses  them  to-day  in  all  their  essence  and  in 
almost  all  of  their  details.  We  see  now  that  in  that  prim- 
itive age  it  was  the  clear  head  and  the  strong  hand  and  the 
loving  heart  of  the  apostle  Paul  which  more  than  any  other 


17  Cone,  Paul,  pp.  1 18-19. 


216  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

living  force  created  and  established  and  indoctrinated  and 
saved  Gentile  Christianity  to  the  world.  We  never  can  be 
sufficiently  thankful  to  him  for  that  achievement.  It  marks 
him  as  one  of  the  greatest  men  in  world  history.  His 
monument  is  the  Christian  Church  of  to-day  in  all  the 
Gentile  lands. 

VI.  Date  of  the  Epistle 

Paul  had  left  Corinth  at  the  time  of  the  observance  of 
Pentecost  in  the  year  54.  Three  years  now  had  gone  by. 
In  his  stay  in  Ephesus  he  had  been  in  constant  touch  with 
brethren  from  the  Corinthian  church.  He  had  heard  many 
things  which  pleased  him,  but  latterly  the  reports  had 
become  rather  alarming.  Evidently,  there  were  evils  in 
the  church  which  were  growing  and  which  ought  to  be 
checked.  Apollos  reported  them  officially  and  others  unof- 
ficially. Paul  wrote  a  warning  note.  The  letter  he  received 
in  reply  asked  for  his  decision  upon  several  mooted  ques- 
tions, and,  although  Paul  was  not  a  letter-writer  by  prefer- 
ence and  much  rather  would  talk  or  work  than  write,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  the  time  had  come  for  some  more 
extended  formulation  of  his  thought  upon  the  themes  they 
had  suggested  and  upon  the  general  condition  of  the  church. 

The  church  at  Thessalonica  had  been  in  great  danger  of 
fanaticism  and  of  consequent  dissolution,  and  his  letters 
to  that  church  had  saved  it  from  any  such  result.  The  situ- 
ation in  Corinth  now  seemed  to  be  almost,  if  not  quite,  as 
alarming.  Unless  certain  tendencies  were  dealt  with  they 
would  lead  straight  to  ruin.  Paul  was  not  one  to  see  the 
work  of  his  hands  go  to  wreck  without  an  attempt  at  least 
to  save  every  soul  on  board.  He  was  as  much  interested 
in  the  church  three  years  after  he  had  left  it  as  he  was  when 
he  had  been  on  the  ground.  It  was  his  church  still,  and  he 
wanted  to  find  it  in  good  condition  when  he  returned  to 
it.      He   intended  to   tarry   in   Ephesus   until    Pentecost,18 

«  1  Cor.  16.  8. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  21; 

and  this  letter  probably  was  written  some  weeks  before  that 
date.  The  reference  to  the  Jewish  passover  at  one  point  in 
the  epistle19  may  suggest  that  it  was  being  celebrated  at  the 
time  Paul  was  writing.  That  would  give  us  the  definite 
date  for  our  first  epistle,  Easter  of  the  year  57. 

VII.  Contents  of  the  Epistle 

The  general  outline  of  the  contents  of  the  epistle  is  clearly 
indicated  by  the  spacing  in  the  American  Revised  Version. 

1.  The  Greeting.  The  greeting  contains  a  half -sarcastic 
thanksgiving  and  an  expression  of  the  apostle's  indomit- 
able hope  (1.  1-9).  In  the  greeting  in  the  First  Epistle  to 
the  Thessalonians  Paul  gave  thanks  for  their  faith  and  hope 
and  love.  They  had  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  in  Thessalonica. 
and  Paul  rejoiced  over  them  without  any  reservation  of 
spirit  or  speech.  Here  Paul  gives  thanks  that  the  Corinth- 
ians are  enriched  in  utterance  and  knowledge  and  come  be- 
hind in  no  gift.  They  have  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  in  Corinth. 
The  grace  of  God  is  manifest  in  both  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit 
and  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit.  If  they  only  could  be  combined 
in  Corinth  or  anywhere  else,  there  would  be  no  need  of  a 
qualified  thanksgiving  such  as  we  find  here. 

2.  Exhortation  and  Admonition.  These  concern  the 
divisive  spirit  in  the  church  (1.  10  to  4.  21),  and  are  in  the 
first  four  chapters  after  the  greeting.  This  was  the  greatest 
fault  in  the  church  at  Corinth,  the  one  affecting  the  larg- 
est number  of  people  and  most  seriously  threatening  the 
future  of  the  church  organization,  and  Paul  sets  himself 
at  once  to  deal  with  it.  Paul  conceived  of  the  church  as 
the  great  unifier  of  the  race.  Within  its  pale  there  were  to 
be  no  intervening  barriers  of  nationality,  sex,  or  position  in 
society.  Male  or  female,  Greek,  Roman,  Jew,  Scythian, 
bond  or  free,  all  were  to  belong  to  one  brotherhood  and  to 
share  and  share  alike  in  religious  privileges  and  in  mutual 
love.     It  was  a  great  conception,  a  noble  ideal.     Was  it  to 

19 1  Cor.  5.  7,  8. 


218  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

be  shattered  by  rivalries  and  jealousies  within  the  church 
itself?  Was  the  seamless  robe  of  the  Christ  to  be  rent  by 
the  spirit  of  faction?  Paul  bends  all  his  energies  to  pre- 
vent such  disaster.  He  pleads  for  an  earnest  seeking  after 
the  apostolic  spirit  of  submissive  ministry  to  the  glory  of 
Christ  instead  of  any  insistence  upon  apostolic  prerogatives 
over  each  other.  He  rebukes  all  pride  of  worldly  wisdom 
and  exhorts  to  the  humble  service  of  God. 

3.  A  Vital  Issue.  The  case  of  flagrant  immorality,  with 
the  discussion  of  lawsuits  and  the  general  question  of 
personal  purity  (chapters  5,  6).  Here  was  a  vital  issue.  If 
gross  immorality  such  as  was  manifested  in  this  individual 
case  would  be  tolerated  in  the  Christian  Church,  that  church 
might  as  well  go  out  of  commission.  If  the  church  did 
not  discipline  this  offender,  and  that  right  speedily,  it  would 
sign  its  own  death  warrant  in  the  spiritual  realm.  Paul 
delivers  his  ultimatum  on  this  subject.  They  must  either 
excommunicate  this  man  or  he,  Paul,  will  excommunicate 
them.  If  they  fellowship  with  this  culprit,  they  cannot 
longer  fellowship  with  him.  Let  them  take  their  choice. 
Let  the  matter  be  determined  inside  the  church.  There 
was  no  need  to  carry  such  things  or  any  of  their  difficulties 
before  the  heathen  tribunals.  Let  them  decide  once  for  all 
that  a  Christian  man. could  have  no  more  intercourse  with 
harlots. 

4.  Questions  Concerning  Marriage  (chapter  7).  Paul 
allows  marriage  to  all.  He  prefers  celibacy  for  himself 
and  all  others  who  have  his  continence  and  consecration. 
There  are  some  things  in  this  chapter  which  sound  strangely 
to  modern  ears.  In  reading  it,  it  will  be  well  to  remember 
( 1 )  that  Paul  believed  that  the  world  was  about  to  pass 
away  in  a  short  time,  and  that  all  his  advice  is  given  in 
view  of  that  impending  calamity.  He  was  mistaken  at  this 
point,  as  we  have  seen;  and  we  feel  sure  that  if  he  had 
known  that  the  world  was  to  stand  for  twenty  centuries, 
as  it  now  has,  he  would  not  have  talked  in  this  way.     llow- 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  219 

ever,  the  fundamental  principles  which  Paul  here  lays  down 
are  all  right.  To  be  sure,  if  everybody  had  followed  his 
advice  as  here  given,  and  all  unmarried  Christians  had 
preferred  and  maintained  the  celibate  state,  the  race  would 
have  been  seriously  depleted  by  this  time,  and  in  proportion 
to  the  success  of  Christianity  in  making  converts  would  the 
destruction  of  the  race  have  been  assured.  Paul  did  not 
have  the  race  question  in  his  thought  at  this  time.  If  the 
world  had  come  to  an  end  as  he  expected,  the  race  ques- 
tion would  have  been  settled  in  that  way.  Settlement  by 
nonpropagation  did  not  come  within  Paul's  horizon  of 
thought  in  this  epistle. 

(2)  We  must  remember  that  Paul  is  not  attacking  mar- 
riage, as  some  have  thought,  but  he  is  defending  celibacy 
from  the  attack  of  those  who  deemed  it  wrong  or  inhuman. 
What  he  says  on  this  subject  is  of  general  validity  to-day. 
The  celibate  state  is  the  best  for  some  work.  We  prefer 
to  ask  unmarried  men  to  go  into  the  army  and  navy.  We 
prefer  to  send  unmarried  women  into  hospitals  and  out  to 
frontier  teaching  and  missionary  posts.  In  exceptional 
cases  we  admire  the  man  or  the  woman  who  from  the  high 
sense  of  duty  and  in  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  or  with  the 
knowledge  of  hereditary  diseases  in  the  body  or  some  weak- 
ness which  ought  not  to  be  transmitted  to  posterity  chooses 
some  dangerous  work  with  which  marriage  seems  incom- 
patible or  devotes  a  lifetime  to  the  prosecution  of  some 
noble  aim  with  undivided  attention  and  affection.  Lord 
Bacon  said,  "Certainly,  the  best  works  and  of  greatest 
merit  for  the  public  have  proceeded  from  the  unmarried 
or  childless  men,  who  both  in  affection  and  means  have 
married  and  endowed  the  public."  The  man  who  remains 
single  because  he  is  too  lazy  to  work  and  support  a  family, 
or  too  selfish  to  share  his  interests  with  a  wife,  or  too  stingy 
to  pay  for  a  marriage  license  and  buy  furniture  for  house- 
keeping, Paul  would  have  despised  just  as  much  as  we  do. 
Paul  knew  that  the  most  of  people  would  marry  as  long  as 


220  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  world  stood,  and  we  feel  sure  that  he  would  have 
advised  them  to  marry  if  he  had  known  that  the  world 
would  stand  through  the  next  generation. 

(3)  Some  of  the  expressions  in  this  chapter  may  be 
understood  better  when  we  remember  that  in  that  age  mar- 
riage was  largely  a  matter  of  arrangement  between  the 
parents  of  the  contracting  parties,  and  sentiment  did  not 
play  such  a  prominent  part  as  in  these  modern  times.  A 
father  disposed  of  his  daughter  in  marriage,  and  sometimes 
the  daughter  had  never  seen  her  intended  husband  before 
marriage,  and  it  was  only  in  particular  cases  that  the  young 
people  had  become  acquainted  or  had  fallen  in  love  with 
each  other  independently  of  their  parents'  action.  That  was 
not  considered  as  necessary  then  as  it  is  now.20 

5.  Meats  Offered  to  Idols  (8.  1  to  11.  1).  Paul  claimed 
liberty  to  eat  meat  at  any  time  in  any  place.  He  would 
not  exercise  this  liberty  in  such  a  way  as  to  hurt  his  brother's 
conscience  or  endanger  his  brother's  salvation.  He  lays 
down  some  common-sense  rules  of  conduct  and  exhorts 
the  Corinthians  to  do  all  to  the  glory  of  God,  with  due 
regard  to  the  avoidance  of  occasions  of  stumbling. 

6.  A  Question  of  Custom.  The  covering  of  the  head 
and  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  (11.  2-34).  It 
is  noteworthy  here  that  Paul  decides  against  the  Jewish 
custom,  the  custom  of  his  own  people,  and  favors  the  Greek 
practice  of  the  men  coming  into  the  public  service  with 
uncovered  head.  The  Lord's  Supper  is  to  be  simply  a 
memorial  and  not  an  ordinary  or  full  course  meal. 

7.  Spiritual  Gifts  and  Their  Relative  Value  (chapters 
12-14).  The  charisms  are  diverse,  but  they  come  from  the 
same  Spirit.  They  are  all  intended  to  edify  the  whole 
Body  of  Christ.  Prophesying  is  better  than  speaking  with 
tongues.  Love  is  the  greatest  of  all.  In  the  discussion  of 
the  decorum  of  public  services  Paul  rules  the  women  out  of 

20  "Faces  strange  and  tongues  unknown 

Make  us  by  a  bid  their  own."    (Sophocles.    Fragm.    Terens.). 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  221 

the  duty  or  privilege  of  public  speaking.  "It  is  shameful 
for  a  woman  to  speak  in  a  church."  21  We  regard  this  as 
a  local  regulation  and  not  of  general  application  and  not  of 
any  application  to  these  modern  times  or  these  changed 
conditions  or  these  different  peoples.  In  the  Corinth  of  that 
day  it  was  the  avowed  prostitutes  alone  who  were  prominent 
in  the  public  festivals,  and  it  was  too  large  a  risk  for  the 
Christian  women  themselves  to  do  anything  which  would 
lead  to  their  identification  in  the  popular  mind  with  this 
class.  It  was  wholly  in  their  own  behalf  that  Paul  urged 
this  precaution  upon  them.  He  would  have  lifted  the  pro- 
scription at  once,  we  believe,  in  a  different  environment. 
He  was  jealous  of  the  reputation  of  the  church  body;  but 
he  was  altogether  willing  that  anything  should  be  done 
which  was  to  the  glory  of  God. 

8.  The  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection  (chapter  15).  .Paul 
identifies  the  message  of  the  resurrection  with  the  gospel. 
They  stand  or  fall  together,  in  his  mind.  He  gives  the  full- 
est discussion  of  the  question  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. He  meets  objections,  builds  up  a  masterly  argu- 
ment, and  closes  with  a  paean  of  victory.  The  chapter  is 
one  of  the  most  valuable  in  the  sacred  book. 

9.  The  Collection,  and  Closing  Messages  (chapter  16). 
Notice  the  general  order  of  these  discussions  in  the  epistle : 
(1)  Ecclesiastical  questions — divisions  and  discipline 
(chapters  1-6).  (2)  Moral  questions — impurity,  lawsuits, 
marriage,  and  meats  (chapters  7-10).  (3)  Liturgical  ques- 
tions— costumes  in  church,  the  holy  communion,  spiritual 
gifts,  the  prohibition  of  women  orators  (chapters  11-14). 
(4)  A  dogmatic  question — the  resurrection  (chapter  15). 

VIII.  Noteworthy  Features  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Its  Picture  of  the  Early  Church.  Weizsacker  says 
that  we  have  here  "a  fragment  which  has  no  parallel  in 
ecclesiastical  history."    The  epistle  is  invaluable  as  a  source 

21  1  Cor.  14.  35. 


222  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  information  concerning  the  conditions  of  primitive 
Christianity.  It  is  a  first-class  historical  authority.  No- 
where else  do  we  get  so  many  details  of  the  actual 
church  life.  If  we  are  able  to  realize  that  life  at  all 
to-day,  it  is  largely  because  of  the  aid  given  us  in  this 
epistle.  Dean  Stanley  has  said,  "We  are  here,  and  (as 
far  as  the  epistles  are  concerned)  here  only,  allowed  to 
witness  the  earliest  conflict  of  Christianity  with  the  culture 
and  the  vices  of  the  ancient  classical  world."  We  learn 
more  of  the  corporate  life  and  the  spiritual  conflict  of  a 
young  heathen-Christian  church  in  this  epistle  than  from 
all  other  sources  combined.  No  more  vivid  and  realistic 
picture  could  have  been  given  us.  We  get  more  light  upon 
the  official  government  of  the  church  and  more  upon  the 
rules  for  the  self-government  of  individuals  in  the  church 
from  this  epistle  than  from  any  other  book  in  the  Bible. 
This  makes  it  a  most  noteworthy  book,  to  begin  with. 

2  Its  Practical  Wisdom.  A  characteristic  feature  of 
this  epistle  is  its  practical  wisdom.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  is  the  preeminently  theological  epistle  in  the 
Pauline  list.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  is  the 
preeminently  practical  epistle.  Findlay  calls  it  the  epistle 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  cross  in  application.  Donald  Fraser 
has  written,  "It  says  nothing  of  the  law  or  justification, 
discusses  no  doctrine  whatever  save  that  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, but  treats  in  a  masterly  manner  of  love,  purity,  con- 
science, discernment,  and  reverence  in  the  Church  of 
God."  22 

3.  Its  Pastoral  Suggestiveness.  Bishop  Warren  de- 
clared, "No  epistle  should  be  more  carefully  studied  by  a 
modern  pastor."  23  The  reason  for  such  a  declaration  has 
been  well  stated  by  Principal  Robertson :  "The  two  Epistles 
to  the  Corinthians  are  the  most  pastoral  of  the  epistles.  For 
details  of  pastoral  work  and  organization,  indeed,  we  go  to 

22  Lectures  on  the  Bible,  vol.  ii,  p.  130. 

23  Iliff  Studies,  p.  34- 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  223 

the  letters  to  Timothy  and  Titus.  But  for  the  deep-seated 
principles,  for  the  essential  relations  between  pastor  and 
peoples,  for  the  conception  of  the  apostolic  office,  and  the 
nature  of  apostolical  authority,  these  epistles  are  our  pri- 
mary sources.  The  questions  touched  upon  in  First  Corin- 
thians furnish  a  fair  sample  of  the  difficulties  of  church 
government ;  and  as  each  is  taken  up  in  turn  some  deep- 
lying  principle  springs  naturally  to  the  apostle's  lips,  and 
is  brought  to  bear  with  all  its  power  upon  the  matter  in 
hand.  The  letter  is  unique  as  an  object-lesson  in  the 
bishopric  of  souls."  24 

4.  Its  Greek  Allusions.  As  Dean  Stanley  has  noted, 
"Here  more  than  anywhere  else  in  Paul's  writings  his  allu- 
sions and  illustrations  are  borrowed,  not  merely  from  Jewish 
customs  and  feelings,  but  from  the  literature,  the  amuse- 
ments, the  education,  the  worship  of  Greece  and  Rome."  2r> 
Corinth  was  a  Greek  city,  and  the  church  was  in  a  Greek 
environment.  In  this  epistle  Paul  is  a  Greek  to  the  Greeks. 
Note,  for  example,  his  references  to  the  Greek  games 
(9.  24-27).  The  Isthmian  games  were  celebrated  near  Cor- 
inth and  they  included  the  five  exercises  of  wrestling,  leap- 
ing, throwing  the  discus,  racing,  and  boxing.  The  contest- 
ants for  the  ten  months  preceding  the  games  went  into 
training,  a  prolonged  period  of  abstinence  and  exercise. 
Before  the  final  period  of  thirty  days  of  training  under 
the  eye  of  the  president  the  sacrifices  were  offered  and 
each  of  the  contestants  took  his  oath  that  he  was  of  pure 
Greek  lineage  and  that  he  never  had  been  convicted  of 
any  crime  and  that  he  never  had  been  guilty  of  an  act  of 
impiety.  All  Greece  went  to  this  spectacle.  The  crown  of 
parsley  or  pine  leaves  given  to  the  victor  in  the  contests  was 
one  of  the  most  coveted  honors  in  the  land.  Did  Paul  go  to 
the  games  with  the  rest  ?  Possibly  he  had  the  opportunity  in 
the  two  years  he  was  in  Corinth,  and  probably  it  would  not 

24  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  I,  p.  489. 
26  Stanley,  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  p.  4. 


224  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

occur  to  him  that  he  need  have  any  conscientious  scruples. 
He  seems  to  have  been  an  emancipated  Jew  at  this  point 
as  well  as  at  so  many  others.  Anyway,  he  makes  free  allu- 
sion to  the  racing  and  the  boxing  of  the  Isthmian  games, 
makes  the  abstinence  and  prolonged  training  of  the  con- 
testants an  example  to  the  Christian,  and  contrasts  their 
crown  of  perishable  pine  leaves  with  the  Christian's  reward. 

5.  Its  Exaltation  of  Christ.  In  all  of  Paul's  epistles 
Christ  is  exalted,  but  in  no  other  epistle  is  the  name  of 
Christ  introduced  so  continuously.  Look  at  the  beginning 
verses.  In  the  first  ten  verses  the  name  of  Christ  occurs 
ten  times.  It  was  Chrysostom  who  first  pointed  out  the 
fact  that  Paul  nails  the  Corinthians  down  to  the  name  of 
Christ  from  the  very  start.  He  wants  them  to  see  at  the 
very  outset  that  Christ  is  all  and  in  all,  and  that  there  is 
no  room  for  any  self-confidence  except  in  him.  He  calls 
their  attention  to  the  name  of  Christ,  the  testimony  of  Christ, 
the  revelation  of  Christ,  the  day  of  Christ,  the  fellowship 
of  Christ.  That  is  the  most  important  thing  in  this  epistle 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end. 

However,  this  exaltation  of  Christ  does  not  prevent  the  ^ 
clear  presentation  of  his  subordination  to  the  Father  in  all  j 
things.  Paul  never  has  set  forth  that  truth  more  clearly 
than  in  this  epistle.  "First  we  have  the  grand  climax  with 
which  the  third  chapter  closes :  'All  are  yours ;  and  ye  are 
Christ's ;  and  Christ  is  God's.'  26  Again  in  the  eleventh 
chapter,  where  Paul  is  regulating  the  attire  of  women  in 
public  worship,  'But  I  would  have  you  know,  that  the  head 
of  every  man  is  Christ;  and  the  head  of  the  woman  is  the 
man;  and  the  head  of  Christ  is  God.'27  And,  lastly,  in 
the  fifteenth  chapter,  where  the  apostle  turns  seer,  and 
transports  us  to  the  end  of  time,  and  a  revelation,  far  more 
remarkable  than  any  in  the  Apocalypse,  is  given  us  of  the 
future  mutual  relations  of  the  Persons  of  the  Godhead, 

26 1  Cor.  3.  22,  23. 
27  1  Cor.  11.  3. 


FIRST  CORINTHIANS  225 

'And  when  all  things  have  been  subjected  unto  him,  then 
shall  the  Son  also  himself  be  subjected  unto  him  that  did 
subject  all  things  unto  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all.'  "  28 

6.  Its  Condemnation  of  Personal  Puffing.  The  self- 
inflated  spirit  is  castigated  in  this  epistle  as  nowhere  else 
in  the  New  Testament  (see  4.  6,  18,  19;  5.  2;  8.  1 ;  13.  4; 
and  2  Cor.  12.  20).  This  term  occurs  elsewhere  in  the 
New  Testament  only  in  Col.  2.  18. 

7.  Its  Logical  Order.  In  form  this  epistle  is  the  most 
orderly  and  logical  of  Paul's  epistles. 

8.  Its  Style.  The  style  is  the  most  simple  and  direct  to 
be  found  in  the  Pauline  epistles.  Plummer  thinks  that  on 
the  score  of  its  style  this  epistle  "should  possibly  be  ranked 
first  among  Paul's  writings,"  and  he  adds,  "Possibly  no 
such  thought  was  in  his  mind ;  but  the  letter  might  convince 
the  fastidious  Greeks  that  in  clearness  of  thought  and 
power  of  language  he  was  in  no  way  inferior  to  the  eloquent 
Apollos."  29 

IX.  Authenticity  of  the  Epistle 

When  Baur  and  the  Tubingen  school  of  critics  decided 
against  the  authenticity  of  the  other  Pauline  epistles,  they 
still  recognized  as  genuine  First  and  Second  Corinthians, 
Galatians,  and  Romans.  These  four  epistles  belong  to  the 
same  period  in  Paul's  life  and  are  too  well  authenticated 
seriously  to  be  questioned.  First  Corinthians  is  the  first 
book  in  the  New  Testament  to  be  cited  by  name  in  later 
literature.  Before  the  end  of  the  first  century,  about  A.  D. 
95,  Clement  of  Rome  wrote  to  the  Corinthians  and  quoted 
from  this  epistle  several  times.  In  chapter  47  he  refers  to 
it  explicitly,  as  follows :  "Take  up  the  epistle  of  the  blessed 
apostle  Paul.  What  did  he  write  to  you  at  the  time  when 
the  gospel  first  began  to  be  preached?  Truly,  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  Spirit,  he  wrote  to  you  concerning  him- 

28  1  Cor.  15.  28.    White,  Expositor,  VI,  ii,  p.  19. 

29  Article  in  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 


226  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

self,  and  Cephas,  and  Apollos,  because  even  then  parties 
had  been  formed  among  you."  Barnabas,  Hennas,  Igna- 
tius, Polycarp,  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  the  Teaching  of 
the  Twelve  all  bear  witness  to  the  acquaintance  of  the  early 
church  with  the  language  and  the  teaching  of  this  epistle. 
The  testimony  of  the  early  authorities  is  clear  and  full  and 
unquestionable.  The  external  evidence  to  the  authenticity 
of  First  Corinthians  is  all  that  could  be  expected  or  desired. 
However,  if  the  external  evidence  were  less  satisfactory 
than  it  is,  the  internal  evidence  would  be  sufficient  to  guar- 
antee the  epistle.  Paley,  Beet,  Godet,  McClymont,  and 
others  point  out  the  fact  that  the  Corinthians  never  would 
have  acknowledged  and  preserved  an  epistle  which  so 
plainly  set  forth  and  rebuked  their  own  faults  if  they  had 
not  been  assured  of  its  apostolic  authority.  The  many 
references  to  Paul's  own  movements,  the  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  internal  condition  of  the  church,  the  many 
points  of  coincidence  with  the  book  of  the  Acts  and  other 
writings  in  the  New  Testament  combine  to  prove  its  incon- 
testable genuineness. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SECOND  EPISTLE  TO  THE  CORINTHIANS 

1.  Contrast  Between  the  First  and  Second  EriSTLE 

i.  Schmiedel  says  that  "in  passing  from  First  to  Second 
Corinthians  one  feels  like  passing  from  a  park  with  paths 
intersecting  but  easily  discernible  into  a  pathless  or  track- 
less forest."  First  Corinthians  has  clear  divisions  of 
thought,  and  its  separate  sections  are  well  marked  out  from 
each  other.  Second  Corinthians  is  filled  with  a  jumble  of 
emotions  and  a  veritable  jungle  of  interlacing  and  almost 
impenetrable  passions  and  affections  and  fervors.  In  First 
Corinthians  everything  is  written  down  decently  and  in 
order.  In  Second  Corinthians  there  is  chaos  come  again. 
First  Corinthians  is  the  most  systematic  of  the  Pauline 
epistles.  Second  Corinthians  is  the  least  systematic  of  them 
all. 

2.  First  Corinthians  deals  with  a  larger  number  of  topics, 
and  these  topics  are  more  varied  and  cover  a  wider  range  of 
interest  than  is  represented  in  any  other  epistle  of  Paul. 
Second  Corinthians  has  only  one  theme,  with  one  paren- 
thesis in  the  middle  of  it. 

3.  First  Corinthians  tells  us  more  about  the  inside  history 
of  the  early  church,  its  troubles  and  its  triumphs,  its  prac- 
tices and  its  principles,  than  we  can  learn  from  any  other 
book  in  the  New  Testament.  Second  Corinthians  tells  us 
more  about  the  heart  history  and  the  inmost  character  of  the 
apostle  Paul  than  any  other  source  of  information  we  have. 
Here  we  see  his  passionate  soul  in  its  twofold  aspect  of 
sensitiveness  and  affection,  on  the  one  hand,  and  defiance 
and  resolution  on  the  other.     Anxious,  suffering,  plead- 

229 


23o  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ing,  expostulating,  Paul  wears  his  heart  on  his  sleeve  in 
this  epistle.  We  come  to  know  the  man  here  as  nowhere 
else.  We  study  First  Corinthians  to  know  the  church ;  we 
study  Second  Corinthians  to  know  the  church's  greatest 
apostle. 

II.  The  General  Theme 

The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  is  Paul's  "Apologia 
pro  Vita  Sua."  He  had  been  slandered  and  he  here  sets 
himself  to  make  reply  to  his  critics  and  to  make  it  clear  to 
all  the  church  that  his  motives  have  been  of  the  purest 
throughout.  All  good  men  are  likely  to  be  slandered.  God 
himself  was  slandered,  according  to  the  story  of  the  garden 
of  Eden.1  Eve  said  to  the  serpent,  "Of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  God  hath  said, 
Ye  shall  not  eat  of  it,  neither  shall  ye  touch  it,  lest  ye  die." 
Then  the  serpent  said  to  Eve :  "He  lied  to  you  and  deceived 
you.  You  shall  not  surely  die.  He  simply  wanted  to 
frighten  you.  He  knew  that  in  the  day  that  you  ate  thereof 
your  eyes  would  be  opened,  and  you  would  be  as  God, 
knowing  good  and  evil."  The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  says  that  it  is  impossible  for  God  to  lie,2  and  we 
believe  it.  We  believe  that  he  is  the  God  of  all  truth  and 
that  his  word  can  be  trusted  in  everything.  We  believe  that 
the  serpent  of  the  Genesis  narrative  was  a  liar  and  the 
father  of  lies.  We  believe  that  he  basely  slandered  the  God 
of  all  truth  when  he  said  what  he  did  to  Eve. 

Jesus  was  slandered.  They  said  of  him,  "He  has  a  devil." 
They  called  the  Master  Beelzebub.  They  accused  him  again 
and  again  of  blasphemy  and  Sabbath-breaking  and  uncon- 
cealed sympathy  with  sin.  They  expelled  him  from  their 
coasts.  They  would  have  thrown  him  over  the  mountain 
cliff.  They  harried  him  from  city  to  city  and  from  place 
to  place.    They  arrested  him  at  last  with  swords  and  staves 


1  Gen.  3.  3-5. 

2  Heb.  6.  18. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  231 

and  a  multitude  of  men,  as  though  he  had  been  a  thief  or 
a  public  malefactor.  They  taunted  him  and  they  beat  him 
for  a  night  and  a  day.  Then  they  took  him  to  Golgotha  and 
nailed  him  to  a  tree,  and  there  they  reviled  him  through  the 
slow  hours  of  his  agony  with  the  diabolical  ingenuity  of 
malicious  jest  till  in  the  earthquake  and  the  darkness  his 
spirit  was  committed  to  God.  He  was  slandered  and 
maligned  through  all  his  public  ministry.  In  all  probability 
the  last  word  he  ever  heard  as  he  hung  on  the  cross  was 
some  slanderous  epithet. 

"A  disciple  is  not  above  his  teacher,  nor  a  servant  above 
his  lord.  It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be  as  his 
teacher,  and  the  servant  as  his  lord.  If  they  have  called 
the  master  of  the  house  Beelzebub,  how  much  more  them 
of  his  household!"3  As  long  as  there  are  evil  men  in  the 
world  good  men  are  sure  to  be  slandered.  If  God  could 
not  escape,  and  if  Jesus  could  not  escape,  the  children  of 
God  and  the  disciples  of  Jesus  may  not  hope  to  escape. 
Job  was  a  good  man,  but  he  was  slandered  horribly  by  his 
best  friends.  Joseph  was  a  good  man,  but  he  was  accused 
of  criminal  assault.  Moses  was  a  meek  man,  but  he  was 
accused  of  lording  it  over  the  people.  Ahab  slandered 
Elijah,  and  Shimei  slandered  David.  Athanasius  thought 
the  whole  world  was  against  him.  Martin  Luther  was 
depicted  by  his  enemies  as  a  veritable  monster  of  iniquity. 

John  Wesley  was  called  a  defamer,  a  reviler,  a  liar,  a 
bigot,  an  Ishmaelite,  at  the  very  time  when  his  holy  life  and 
his  powerful  preaching  were  raising  up  a  people  to  herald 
the  second  Reformation  and  under  the  name  of  Methodists 
were  preparing  them  to  carry  the  gospel  of  God's  power  to 
the  poor  of  every  land.  What  was  John  Wesley  doing  that 
they  should  apply  to  him  such  names?  He  was  spreading 
scriptural  holiness  throughout  all  England,  and'  that  occa- 
sioned the  torrent  of  abuse.    The  tradition  is  that  one  day 

8  Matt.  lex  24,  25. 


232  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

John  Wesley  said  to  his  churchmembers,  "Brethren,  I  have 
been  charged  with  all  the  crimes  in  the  catalogue,  with  only 
one  exception  as  far  as  I  know,  and  that  is  the  crime  of 
drunkenness ;  no  one  ever  has  accused  me  of  that."  Then 
a  woman  stood  up  in  the  congregation  and  said,  "You  old 
hypocrite,  you  know  that  you  were  drunk  last  night." 
"Bless  the  Lord!"  said  John  Wesley,  "the  catalogue  is  now 
complete !"  Even  in  our  day  we  have  seen  John  Wesley's 
picture  published  by  the  liquor  dealers  of  America  as  an 
advertisement,  and  they  have  claimed  that  he  was  a  patron 
and  an  adviser  of  the  use  of  wine  and  beer!  The  falsity  of 
slander  scarcely  could  find  a  better  illustration  than  that. 

When  Spurgeon  was  the  greatest  gospel  preacher  in  the 
world  he  was  a  target  for  the  slanders  of  the  press.  The 
papers  said  that  he  was  a  pulpit  buffoon,  and  that  he  had 
pictured  the  sinner's  quick  descent  into  hell  by  straddling 
his  pulpit  rail  and  sliding  down  it  into  the  congregation. 
The  devil  and  his  imps  are  busy  all  the  time  in  the  manu- 
facture of  wholesale  slanders  of  the  righteous.  No  good 
man  need  be  surprised  if  he  encounters  them.  It  would 
rather  be  to  his  discredit  if  all  men  spoke  well  of  him.  For 
the  most  part  evil  men  speak  well  only  of  their  own  kind. 
Paul  had  been  slandered,  and  in  this  epistle  he  makes 
answer  to  these  slanders.  Some  of  the  things  which  his 
enemies  were  saying  about  him  may  have  had  a  measure 
of  truth  in  them,  but  for  the  most  part  they  were  utterly 
false,  and  Paul  sets  himself  to  make  that  perfectly  clear. 
What  were  these  charges  made  against  Paul  and  diligently 
circulated  in  the  church  at  Corinth?  We  will  make  a  list 
of  them,  as  we  find  them  suggested  in  this  epistle. 

III.  Slanders  Against  Paul  and  His  Answers 
to  Them 

There  is  only  one  quotation  from  Paul's  enemies,  explic- 
itly designated  as  such,  in  this  epistle,  and  it  occurs  in  10. 
10 ;  but  throughout  the  epistle  there  are  words  and  phrases 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  233 

which  doubtless  are  taken  from  their  oral  or  written  charges 
against  him.    We  begin  with  one  in  the  direct  quotation. 

1.  As  to  His  Personal  Appearance.  (1)  "They  say  .  .  . 
His  bodily  presence  is  weak."  4  Paul's  enemies  were  say- 
ing: "He  is  little  and  insignificant  in  appearance.  He  does 
not  compare  with  many  of  these  other  leaders  who  are 
tall  and  straight  and  command  respectful  attention  even  as 
they  walk  the  public  streets.  It  would  be  well  to  have 
a  man  at  the  head  of  our  church  who  will  be  an  ornament 
to  it  as  he  stands  in  the  pulpit,  a  man  as  good-looking  as 
any  of  the  sophists  and  rhetoricians  and  philosophers  in 
Corinth.  As  for  this  Paul,  people  laugh  at  him.  These 
Greeks  who  are  accustomed  to  the  perfect  physique  of  their 
statuary  and  their  art  and  to  the  ideal  human  form  as 
developed  by  their  athletes  and  their  warriors  simply  turn 
up  their  noses  at  this  comical  crooked  Jewish  dwarf.  Nor 
is  his  personal  appearance  the  worst  of  it." 

(2)  "He  affects  to  be  abject  in  his  bearing.  He  is  very 
lowly  in  our  presence.5  He  abases  himself  more  than  is 
necessary  even  for  a  man  who  looks  as  he  does.6  He  might 
carry  himself  with  some  dignity  at  least;  but  he  chooses 
to  crouch  and  to  cringe  and  to  curry  favor  by  an  extrava- 
gant show  of  humility  which  overreaches  itself  and  makes 
him  seem  contemptible." 

What  does  Paul  say  to  these  things  ?  He  makes  no  direct 
reply  to  the  statement  that  his  bodily  presence  is  weak.  He 
is  silent  concerning  that  remark,  as  unworthy  of  any  dis- 
cussion. No  man  can  add  anything  to  his  stature,  and  he  is 
not  responsible  for  that.  It  is  his  duty  to  make  the  best  of 
the  body  he  has,  and  neither  he  nor  anybody  else  ought  to 
complain  if  he  is  doing  that.  Paul  does  suggest  that  a  man 
ought  to  be  judged  by  his  heart  and  his  spirit  and  his  life 
rather  than  by  the  appearance  of  his  face  or  his  head  or  his 

4  2  Cor.  10.  10. 
6  2  Cor.  10.  1. 
6  2  Cor.  11.  7. 


234  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

back  or  his  legs.  He  says,  "Ye  look  at  the  things  that  are 
before  your  face.7  Ye  are  of  the  ones  who  glory  in  appear- 
ance and  not  in  heart.8  That  is  no  valid  method  of  judg- 
ment. A  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing  is  no  sheep.  Satan  him- 
self can  appear  like  an  angel  of  light.9  A  man  is  to  be 
valued  by  his  inner  character  and  not  by  his  outer  appear- 
ance. His  head  may  be  bald  on  the  outside  when  it  is  not 
bald  within.  His  back  may  be  crooked  and  his  legs  may 
be  crooked  and  his  nose  may  be  crooked  when  his  life  and 
Christian  experience  may  be  as  steady  as  a  clock  and  as 
straight  as  a  string.  The  man  who  glories  in  his  apparel 
and  his  appearance  may  not  be  so  careful  about  his  conduct 
and  his  character. 

"Which  is  the  better  standard  of  judgment,  good  clothes 
or  good  deeds  ?  Which  is  the  more  glory  to  a  man,  a  shapely 
body  or  a  shining  soul?  Men  ought  to  be  judged,  not  by 
their  looks,  but  by  their  lives.  Let  those  who  will  preach 
the  gospel  of  the  glory  of  good  looks ;  we  preach  the  gospel 
of  the  glory  of  Christ.10  Does  any  one  misinterpret  our 
humility  and  call  us  abject?  We  console  ourselves  with 
the  thought  that  it  is  the  abject  whom  God  comforts.11  Do 
they  call  us  weak  in  appearance  and  everything  else?  God's 
power  is  made  perfect  in  weakness.12  If  we  must  needs 
glory,  we  will  glory  of  the  things  that  concern  our  weak- 
ness.13 We  take  pleasure  in  weaknesses  for  Christ's  sake ; 
for  when  we  are  weak,  then  are  we  strong."  14 

Paul  knew  that  he  could  do  nothing  in  and  of  himself; 
but  he  knew  that  he  could  do  all  things  in  Christ.  1  lis 
sense  of  lack  in  his  own  ability  at  any  point  was  counter- 
balanced by  his  faith  in  the  ability  of  Christ  at  all  points. 
Mis  humility  was  not  manifested  in  any  abjection  before 
men   but   in    whole-hearted    subjection   to   his   Lord.      He 


7  2  Cor.  io.  7.  u  2  Cor.  7.  6. 

8  2  Cor.  5.  12.  ,22  Cor.  12.  9. 

9  2  Cor.  11.  14.  13  2  Cor.  11.  30;  12.  5. 

10  2  Cor.  4.  4.  u  2  Cor.  12.  10. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  235 

was  weak  in  the  flesh  and  correspondingly  strong  in  the 
spirit.  He  was  humble  and  considerate  in  his  demeanor 
toward  men,  because  he  was  meek  and  lowly  in  heart,  like 
his  Lord.  Like  his  Lord  he  was  misunderstood  and 
maligned. 

2.  As  to  His  Speech.  (1)  They  said  that  Paul  was 
"rude  in  speech."  15  His  preaching  was  very  commonplace. 
His  speaking  was  that  of  a  very  ordinary  person.  It  was 
contemptible  as  compared  with  that  of  Apollos  and  other 
leaders  in  the  church. 

(2)  They  said  that  "his  speech  was  of  no  account."  16 
It  was  not  only  rude  in  construction  but  poor  in  substance. 
It  amounted  to  nothing.  The  form  of  his  speech  was 
uncouth  and  the  matter  of  it  was  worthless.  Cicero  de- 
clares that  the  Greeks  cared  not  for  what  one  said,  but  how 
one  said  it.17  These  enemies  of  Paul  attacked  his  preaching 
on  both  grounds.  They  liked  neither  the  manner  nor  the 
matter  of  his  speech.  Who  was  this  Paul  anyway?  He 
was  an  ignorant  tentmaker,  who  never  had  learned  the  rules 
of  the  schools  and  who  did  not  observe  the  commonest 
forms  of  rhetoric.  The  Christian  church  never  could  ex- 
pect to  win  many  of  the  wise  and  the  noble,  the  sophists 
and  the  rhetoricians  and  the  philosophers,  unless  it  ap- 
proached them  in  a  spirit  and  a  style  different  from  that 
of  Paul.  He  might  reach  the  poorer  classes,  the  slaves  and 
the  common  laborers,  but  nothing  could  be  done  in  the 
upper  classes  of  society  by  a  man  with  such  methods  and 
speech.    His  speech  was  rude  and  of  no  account. 

Now  what  was  the  fact  of  the  case?  Was  Paul  an 
orator?  It  depends  altogether  upon  our  definition  of  an 
orator.  If  we  define  an  orator  as  one  who  sits  down  and 
carefully  constructs  orations,  one  who  observes  the  rules  of 
rhetoric,  one  who  polishes  his  periods,  one  who  indulges  in 

16  2  Cor.  11.  6. 

16  2  Cor.  10.  10. 

17  Pro  Flacco,  4,  5. 


236  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ornaments  of  speech  and  fanciful  flourishes,  one  who  prac- 
tices the  arts  of  eloquence,  then  Paul  was  not  an  orator. 
He  avoided  oratory  in  that  sense  on  principle.  He  neither 
imposed  upon  men  with  any  display  of  erudition  nor  did  he 
dazzle  them  with  rhetorical  arts.  He  said  to  these  Corinth- 
ians, "And  I,  brethren,  when  I  came  unto  you,  I  came 
not  with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wisdom,  proclaiming 
to  you  the  testimony  of  God.  .  .  .  My  speech  and  my 
preaching  were  not  in  persuasive  words  of  wisdom."  1S 
Bernhard  Weiss  remarks  upon  these  statements  that  "Paul 
refused  to  weaken  the  divine  power  of  the  gospel  by  mix- 
ing it  with  human  wisdom  and  rhetoric."  He  did  not  set 
out  to  please  people  by  persuasive  oratory.  His  only  aim 
was  to  set  before  them  the  unvarnished  truth. 

However,  if  we  define  an  orator  as  a  great  soul  on  fire 
with  a  great  cause,  then  Paul  was  an  orator.  Longinus,  the 
rhetorician,  made  a  list  of  the  great  orators,  and  he  put 
Paul  first  among  them.  One  of  the  great  American  orators 
has  said,  "The  world  has  not  seen  Paul's  equal  as  an  orator, 
and  the  earth  still  vibrates  with  his  speech."  Paul  said  to 
the  Corinthians,  "My  speech  and  my  preaching  were  not 
in  persuasive  words  of  wisdom,"  but  he  immediately  added 
that  they  were  "in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of 
power."  19  His  preaching  might  not  be  polished  but  it 
was  powerful.  It  brought  results.  People  were  converted 
wherever  he  went.  He  says,  "The  weapons  of  our  warfare 
are  mighty  before  God  to  the  casting  down  of  strongholds; 
casting  down  imaginations,  and  every  high  thing  that  is 
exalted  against  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  bringing  every 
thought  into  captivity  to  the  obedience  of  Christ."  20 

Was  his  speech  rude?  The  common  people  heard  him 
gladly.  Did  it  amount  to  nothing?  Possibly,  yes,  judged 
by  the  rules  of  the  school;  but,  surely,  no,  judged  by  results. 

18 1  Cor.  2.  1,4. 
19 1  Cor.  2.  4. 
20  2  Cor.  io.  4,  5. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  237 

They  themselves  were  his  converts.  They  themselves  were 
his  witnesses  that  "God  had  made  him  sufficient  as  a  min- 
ister of  the  new  covenant;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the  spirit : 
for  the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life."21  Paul  had 
an  eloquence  all  his  own,  the  eloquence  of  intense  convic- 
tion and  overwhelming  enthusiasm  and  thoroughgoing  con- 
secration to  his  cause.  His  written  words  have  stirred  the 
hearts  of  millions,  and  have  lost  none  of  their  power  to 
move  men  through  all  the  centuries  and  down  to  the  pres- 
ent day;  and,  surely,  the  burning  phrases  which  touch  us 
now  must  have  fallen  like  hot  flame  upon  the  souls  who 
first  heard  them.  They  must  have  been  reproved  and 
judged.  Their  consciences  must  have  been  smitten.  The 
secrets  of  their  hearts  were  made  manifest.  Their  eyes 
were  opened  to  see  the  beauty  and  the  power  in  the  gospel 
of  Christ.  They  must  have  fallen  on  their  faces  and  wor- 
shiped God,  and  acknowledged  in  the  very  depths  of  their 
being  that  this  was  indeed  a  messenger  of  the  Most  High.22 
They  heard  Paul  saying: 

"What  was  their  sweet  desire  and  subtle  yearning, 
Lovers,  and  women  whom  their  song  enrolls? 
Faint  to  the  flame  which  in  my  breast  is  burning, 
Less  than  the  love  wherewith  I  ache  for  souls. 

"Christ!    I  am  Christ's!  and  let  the  name  suffice  you, 
Ay,  for  me  too  he  greatly  hath  sufficed: 
Lo  with  no  winning  words  I  would  entice  you, 
Paul  has  no  honor  and  no  friend  but  Christ."23 

They  heard  his  testimony  and  his  exhortation  and  their 
hearts  were  won  and  their  reasons  were  convinced  and  their 
lives  were  transformed  by  the  demonstration  of  the  spirit 
and  the  power  in  all  he  had  to  say.     Paul  was  an  orator, 


21 2  Cor.  3.  6. 

22 1  Cor.  14.  24,  25. 

23  Myers,  Saint  Paul,  pp.  I,  2. 


238  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

judged  by  the  results  of  his  speaking  upon  the  minds  and 
the  hearts  and  the  lives  of  men.  He  did  not  depend  upon 
the  form  of  his  presentation  of  the  truth,  but  he  had  abso- 
lute confidence  in  the  power  of  the  truth  itself  to  commend 
it  to  all  prepared  people.  What  answer  does  Paul  make  to 
these  charges  concerning  his  lack  of  rhetoric  and  the  value- 
lessness  of  his  speech?  Just  one.  He  says,  "Though  I 
be  rude  in  speech,  yet  am  I  not  in  knowledge ;  nay,  in  every 
way  have  we  made  this  manifest  unto  you  in  all  things."  24 
He  would  ignore  the  criticism  of  his  style,  but  he  would 
aver  that  the  content  of  his  preaching  was  all  right.  1  lis 
method  of  presenting  the  truth  might  be  defective;  he 
would  not  argue  that.  But  it  was  the  truth  he  had  to  pre- 
sent; that  must  be  acknowledged  on  every  hand.  His 
rhetoric  might  be  faulty,  but  his  knowledge  was  not. 

Let  everybody  agree  that  he  had  preached  the  truth,  and 
they  might  say  what  else  they  pleased  about  the  preaching. 
He  was  concerned  only  with  the  favorable  reception  of  his 
message,  and  therefore  he  was  not  concerned  with  the 
establishment  of  any  personal  reputation  for  eloquence. 
The  truth  was  mighty  and  would  prevail.  Let  him  be  known 
as  a  preacher  of  the  truth,  and  that  would  suffice  him. 
Paul  was  a  propagandist.  He  was  more  interested  in  the 
success  of  his  mission  than  he  was  in  any  personal  renown. 
Knowledge  he  had,  knowledge  of  the  saving  truth  in  Christ. 
It  was  all-essential  that  they  should  believe  that.  It  was 
not  essential  that  they  should  approve  his  manner  of 
speech. 

3.  As  to  His  Authority.  (1)  They  said  he  was  a  no- 
body.25 Paul  calls  himself  "a  child  untimely  born,  .  .  . 
the  least  of  the  apostles,  that  am  not  meet  to  be  called  an 
apostle." 2C  His  enemies  took  him  at  his  word.  They 
repeated  it  as  literal  truth.    Who  was  he  anyway?    Where 

M  2  Cor.  1 1 .  6. 
26  2  Cor.  12.  11. 
26  1  Cor.  15.  8,  9. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  239 

had  he  come  from?    Who  had  given  him  any  authority  to 
preach?    He  was  an  upstart,  self-appointed  to  this  work. 

(2)  "He  never  had  seen  Christ  in  the  flesh.2"  He  never 
had  been  a  disciple  of  Jesus.  Jesus  had  appointed  twelve 
apostles  while  he  was  here  upon  the  earth  and  Paul  had  not 
been  among  them.  Where,  then,  did  he  get  his  authority? 
Not  from  Jesus." 

(3)  "He  had  no  commendatory  letters  from  the  mother 
church  at  Jerusalem  or  from  any  member  of  the  apostolic 
college  there.  Where,  then,  did  he  get  his  authority,  if  not 
from  Jesus  and  not  from  the  apostles,  who  were  the  author- 
ities in  the  church?  He  had  no  credentials  of  any  kind.28 
No  one  had  given  him  any  letters  of  introduction  or  of 
commendation.  No  church  body  had  indorsed  him  in  this 
way.  Nobody  ever  had  seen  his  papers.  Who  was  sure 
that  he  ever  had  been  ordained?"  What  followed  from 
all  of  these  facts? 

(4)  "Paul  was  no  true  apostle.  He  held  no  commission 
from  the  constituted  apostolate.  Their  standing  was  an 
unquestioned  and  unquestionable  one.  They  were  out- 
and-out  apostles.  Paul  could  not  boast  of  any  such  posi- 
tion as  theirs." 

To  these  charges  Paul  makes  resolute  and  character- 
istic answer.  "Am  I  a  nobody?  It  may  be  that  I  am;  but 
I  reckon  that  I  am  not  a  whit  behind  the  very  chief  est 
apostle.29  Whatever  I  am  I  am  not  inferior  to  them.  It 
may  be  true  that  I  have  not  known  Christ  after  the  flesh, 
but  I  deny  that  that  is  essential  to  apostleship.  Christ  is 
risen  and  has  gone  to  the  right-hand  of  the  throne.  No 
apostle  knows  him  after  the  flesh  now.  If  they  did  so  know 
him,  they  know  him  so  no  more.30  We  all  are  alike  at 
that  point.  W'e  stand  on  the  same  plane.  It  does  not 
follow  that  because  I  was  not  one  of  the  original  twelve  I 
may  not  be  commissioned  by  Christ.     I  am  an  apostle,  not 

27  2  Cor.  5.  16.  292  Cor.  11.  5. 

28  2  Cor.  3.  1.  3°  2  Cor.  5.  16. 


24o  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

from  men,  neither  through  man,  but  by  the  direct  call  of 
the  risen  Jesus.31  He  called  me  to  be  a  chosen  vessel,  to 
bear  his  name  before  the  Gentiles  and  kings,  and  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel.32  I  am  as  much  an  apostle  of  Christ  as 
any  man.  The  Lord  has  given  me  my  authority.33  The 
Lord  has  given  me  all  the  approval  I  need.  Not  he  that 
commendeth  himself  is  approved,  but  whom  the  Lord  com- 
mendeth.34  I  need  no  letters  of  introduction  or  of  com- 
mendation from  the  apostles  at  Jerusalem.  I  give  com- 
mendatory letters  myself.  Do  we  need,  as  some,  epistles  of 
commendation  to  you  or  from  you?  Ye  are  our  epistle, 
written  in  our  hearts,  known  and  read  of  all  men;  being 
made  manifest  that  ye  are  an  epistle  of  Christ,  ministered 
by  us,  written  not  with  ink,  but  with  the  Spirit  of  the  living 
God;  not  in  tables  of  stone,  but  in  tables  that  are  hearts 
of  flesh.35  If  anybody  ask  me  for  my  credentials  I  can 
point  to  my  Corinthian  converts,  and  say,  There  are  my  first 
and  second  and  twenty-second  and  a  hundred  and  second 
Corinthian  epistles ;  read  them  and  find  out  what  sort  of 
a  man  and  what  sort  of  a  missionary  I  am.  The  out-and- 
out  apostles  have  nothing  to  boast  of  that  I  may  not  claim 
as  well  as  they.  Where  do  I  lack?  In  the  signs  of  an 
apostle?  Truly,  the  signs  of  an  apostle  were  wrought 
among  you  in  all  patience,  by  signs  and  wonders  and  mighty 
works.36  In  the  labors  of  an  apostle?  I  labored  more 
abundantly  than  they  all;  yet  not  I,  but  the  grace  of  God 
which  was  with  me.37  In  the  lineage  of  an  apostle?  Are 
they  Hebrews?  so  am  I.  Are  they  Israelites?  so  am  I. 
Are  they  the  seed  of  Abraham?  so  am  I.38  In  the  suffer- 
ings of  an  apostle?  I  was  in  labors  more  abundantly,  in 
prisons  more  abundantly,  in  stripes  above  measure,  in  deaths 
oft.     Of  the  Jews  five  times  received  I  forty  stripes  save 


31  Gal.  i.  i.  362  Cor.  3.  1-3. 

32  Acts  9.  15.  362  Cor.  12.  12. 

33  2  Cor.  10.  8.  37  1  Cor.  15.  10. 
»  2  Cor.  10.  18.  »2  Cor.  11.22. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  241 

one.  Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  was  I  stoned, 
thrice  I  suffered  shipwreck,  a  night  and  a  day  have  I  been 
in  the  deep ;  in  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  rivers,  in 
perils  of  robbers,  in  perils  from  my  countrymen,  in  perils 
from  the  Gentiles,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the 
wilderness,  in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among  false 
brethren ;  in  labor  and  travail,  in  watchings  often,  in  hunger 
and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness.  Besides 
those  things  which  are  without,  there  is  that  which  presseth 
upon  me  daily,  anxiety  for  all  the  churches.39  It  is  not  in 
visions  and  revelations  that  I  lack.  It  is  not  expedient 
that  a  man  should  boast  of  such  things,  but  I  have  had  as 
wonderful  visions  and  revelations  as  any  man.40  I  can 
boast  too,  though  I  feel  like  a  fool  in  doing  it.41  I  am 
become  foolish :  ye  compelled  me ;  for  I  ought  to  have  been 
commended  by  you :  for  in  nothing  was  I  behind  the  very 
chiefest  apostles,  though  I  am  as  you  say,  a  nobody."  42 

4.  As  to  His  Teaching.  (1)  "He  teaches  a  most  obscure 
doctrine.  There  is  something  veiled  and  hidden  about  it.43 
He  talks  about  the  gospel  mystery,  and  there  surely  is  some- 
thing very  mysterious  about  it."  44 

(2)  "He  professes  a  great  reverence  for  the  law  and 
yet  he  preaches  the  abrogation  of  the  law.  Surely,  that  is 
handling  the  word  of  God  deceitfully.45  That  is  greeting 
it  with  a  kiss  of  reverence  and  betraying  it  to  the  death 
at  the  same  time." 

(3)  "He  corrupts  the  word  of  God.46  His  exegesis  is 
most  original,  and  the  more  original  it  is  the  less  reliable 
it  ought  to  be  considered." 

(4)  "He  preaches  no  true  gospel  and  no  true  Jesus.47 
Jesus  obeyed  the  whole  law.     He  was  circumcised,  and  so 


39  2  Cor.  11.  23-28.  **  1  Cor.  2.  7. 

40  2  Cor.  12.  1-4.  4B  2  Cor.  4.  2. 

41  2  Cor.  11.  21,  23.  **  2  Cor.  2.  17. 

42  2  Cor.  12.  n.  47  2  Cor.  11.  4. 

43  2  Cor.  4.  3. 


242  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

were  all  of  the  true  apostles.  Anyone  who  preaches  that 
circumcision  is  nothing  and  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  mem- 
bership in  the  Christian  Church  does  not  represent  Jesus 
and  the  apostles  in  that  teaching.  It  is  another  gospel  than 
the  one  taught  by  them.  We  preach  another  Jesus  and  a 
different  Spirit  and  a  different  gospel,  and  our  gospel  is 
the  only  true  and  original  one." 

(5)  "He  preaches  himself  and  not  Christ.48  He  thinks 
he  knows  more  than  all  the  other  leaders  in  the  church.  He 
exalts  his  authority  above  that  of  Peter  and  of  Jesus  him- 
self. He  is  a  propagandist,  but  he  is  propagating  his  own 
notions  and  not  the  teachings  of  Jesus."  Paul  enters  a  curt 
denial  of  all  of  these  statements.  "We  have  renounced  the 
hidden  things  of  shame,  not  handling  the  word  of  God 
deceitfully.49  We  preach  not  ourselves,  but  Christ  Jesus  as 
Lord,  and  ourselves  as  your  servants  for  Jesus'  sake.5" 
We  are  not  as  the  many,  corrupting  the  word  of  God:  but 
as  of  sincerity,  but  as  of  God,  in  the  sight  of  God,  speak  we 
in  Christ.51  Why  should  anyone  think  that  my  gospel  is 
a  veiled  gospel?  Moses  put  a  veil  upon  his  face,  but  the 
face  of  Christ  is  not  veiled.  This  is  our  gospel,  that  we  with 
unveiled  faces  beholding  the  glory  of  the  Lord  are  trans- 
formed into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory.52  That 
gospel  is  not  veiled,  except  in  those  that  perish,  whose 
minds  the  god  of  this  world  has  blinded."  53 

We  now  have  seen  how  the  enemies  of  Paul  have  charged 
that  his  appearance  was  weak  and  abject,  and  his  speech 
was  rude  and  of  no  account,  and  he  had  no  authority  either 
from  Jesus  or  the  Jerusalem  apostles,  no  letters  of  recom- 
mendation, and  no  legitimate  reason  for  boasting,  and  his 
teaching  was  obscure  and  selfish,  perverting  the  written 
Word,  and  presenting  no  true  gospel.  To  all  of  these 
charges  Paul  can  make  answer  without  much  vehemence 

48  2  Cor.  4.  5.  61  2  Cor.  2.  17. 

49  2  Cor.  4.  2.  »2  Cor.  3.  18. 

50  2  Cor.  4.  5.  63  2  Cor.  4.  3,  4. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  243 

of  feeling.  He  is  not  much  concerned  about  his  appearance 
or  his  speech  or  his  authorization,  and  his  preaching  or 
teaching  may  be  left  to  approve  itself.  If  the  complaints 
and  the  charges  of  his  enemies  had  stopped  at  this  point, 
Paul  might  not  have  regarded  them  as  worthy  of  very  seri- 
ous consideration.  However,  his  opponents  went  farther 
and  attacked  his  personal  character.  That  was  a  different 
matter,  and  all  the  energy  of  Paul's  nature  is  aroused  to 
make  adequate  answer  to  these  personal  slanders. 

5.  As  to  His  Character.  (1)  They  said  that  Paul  was 
fickle  and  unreliable.  He  announced  a  certain  plan  of  action 
and  then  changed  it.  He  evidently  was  uncertain  in  his 
own  mind  and  insincere  in  his  promises.  The  weakness  of 
his  character  was  manifest  in  the  frequency  of  change  in 
his  plans.  Now  he  said,  Yes,  and  now  he  said,  No;  and 
you  never  could  tell  what  he  would  say  next.54  Paul  replied 
that  he  had  good  reason  for  changing  his  plans  for  his  visit. 
It  was  a  desire  to  spare  them  that  prompted  the  new  pro- 
gram.55 It  was  all  meant  in  kindness  to  them.  His  word 
to  them  was  not  Yes  and  No.  Let  them  recall  his  preach- 
ing and  all  of  his  conduct  among  them.  Had  it  not  been 
consistent  throughout?  Did  it  not  all  bear  one  stamp? 
Had  not  God  established  his  word  among  them,  and  given 
it  something  of  the  character  of  God's  own  immutability?56 
God  was  not  fickle,  and  no  more  was  he. 

(2)  "The  reason  for  his  change  of  plans  was  his  coward- 
ice. He  did  not  dare  to  come.  He  had  threatened  super- 
natural punishment  but  he  was  unwilling  to  put  his  powers 
to  a  test  at  that  point.  He  would  not  venture  to  make  good 
his  great  swelling  words.  It  was  all  sheet  lightning.  It 
never  struck  a  blow.  He  thundered  from  a  safe  distance, 
but  he  was  a  bully  and  a  coward  and  he  did  not  come  near 
when   there   was   a   chance    for   a   fight.      His   letters   are 

64  2  Cor.  1.  15-17. 

65  2  Cor.  1.  23. 

56  2  Cor.  1.  18-22. 


244  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

weighty  and  strong ;  but  his  bodily  presence  is  weak."  57 
To  this  Paul  replied,  "I  will  answer  in  person  the  charge 
that  I  dare  not  come,  and  if  I  come  again,  I  will  not  spare.58 
Have  I  terrified  you  with  my  letters?  I  will  show  you 
when  I  get  there  that  what  I  am  in  word  by  letter  when 
I  am  absent,  such  I  am  also  in  deed  when  present."  59 

(3)  "He  still  was  walking  according  to  the  flesh.60  Did 
not  Saul  the  persecutor  set  out  to  abolish  the  Christian 
Church  by  armed  force?  This  Paul,  the  would-be  apostle, 
has  the  same  spirit.  He  is  threatening  violence  still.  He 
is  warring  with  carnal  weapons  still."  Paul  makes  a  flat 
denial  of  this  statement.  "Though  we  walk  in  the  flesh, 
we  do  not  war  according  to  the  flesh,  for  the  weapons  of 
our  warfare  are  not  of  the  flesh ;  but  they  are  mighty  to  the 
casting  down  of  all  opposing  forces."61 

(4)  "He  is  full  of  everlasting  self-assertion.  His  letters 
are  crowded  with  his  boastings.  He  glories  in  his  usurped 
authority.62  He  uses  that  authority  in  a  lordly  fashion  to 
cast  others  down.63  He  is  so  arrogant  as  to  be  regardless 
of  the  feelings  of  others,  and  therefore  he  takes  occasion 
to  wound  us  in  all  of  his  letters.  He  is  a  braggart  and  he 
always  is  talking  about  himself.  He  commends  himself 
because  nobody  else  recommends  him." 64  Paul  enters 
denial  again.  "We  do  not  commend  ourselves;  the  Lord 
commends  us.cri  But  how  about  these  men  who  are  saying 
these  things?  Are  they  not  commending  themselves  and 
measuring  themselves  by  themselves  and  comparing  them- 
selves with  themselves?  Are  they  not  glorying  beyond  their 
measure?  Are  they  not  stretching  themselves  overmuch? 
It  is  very  easy  for  them  to  come  down  with  letters  of  recom- 
mendation from  Jerusalem  and  live  comfortably  with  their 


67  2  Cor.  10.  10.  «  2  Cor.  10.  8,  15. 

58  2  Cor.  13.  I,  2.  63  2  Cor.  10.  8;   13.  10. 

69  2  Cor.  10.  9,  11.  M2  Cor.  3.  1;  5.  12;  10.  ii 

80  2  Cor.  10.  2.  «2  Cor.  10.  18. 

81  2  Cor.  10.  3-6. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  245 

adherents  among  my  converts.  I  have  been  a  pioneer  mis- 
sionary, and  I  have  not  lived  comfortably  at  any  time.  It 
would  seem  that  they  are  obtrusive  and  arrogant,  and  not 
I."  66 

(5)  "He  is  crafty,  and  you  cannot  trust  him.  He  will 
deceive  you,  and  catch  you  by  guile."  67  How  often  we 
have  heard  this  passage  quoted  as  if  it  came  from  the  mouth 
of  the  apostle  Paul  himself!  "Being  crafty,  I  caught  you 
with  guile."  With  this  supposedly  Pauline  authority  behind 
them  how  many  people  have  resorted  to  deceptive  means 
to  gain  good  ends !  They  have  been  crafty  when  they  ought 
to  have  been  as  open  and  honest  as  their  Lord.  They  have 
been  full  of  guile  when  they  ought  to  have  been  as  guileless 
as  Nathanael  if  they  could  expect  the  approval  of  their 
Lord.  This  is  no  confession,  no  personal  testimony  on  the 
part  of  the  apostle  Paul.  It  is  a  vile  slander  which  he 
quotes  from  the  lips  of  his  foes,  and  he  quotes  it  only  to 
confute  it.  He  says:  "What  you  say  is  not  true  that,  being 
crafty,  I  caught  you  with  guile.  Did  I  catch  you  with  guile? 
Did  I  take  advantage  of  you  in  any  way?  Did  I  take 
advantage  of  you  by  any  one  of  them  whom  I  have  sent 
unto  you?  Tell  me,  did  I?  Your  own  consciences  must 
answer  you  that  I  did  not.  I  sent  Titus  to  you.  Did  Titus 
catch  you  with  guile?  Did  Titus  take  any  advantage  of 
you?  Walked  we  not  in  the  same  spirit?  Walked  we  not 
in  the  same  steps?68  I  am  no  liar.69  Neither  was  Titus. 
We  have  no  use  for  craftiness.  The  serpent  beguiled  Eve 
in  craftiness.70  We  are  not  following  after  him.  We  be- 
lieve that  craftiness  is  devilish,  and  no  Christian  will  have 
anything  to  do  with  it.  We  are  striving  to  incarnate  and 
to  recommend  the  simplicity  which  is  in  Christ,  not  the 
double-dealing  which  is  in  the  devil.  We  preach  purity  of 
motive  and  purity  of  speech  and  purity  of  life.     Guile  and 

66  2  Cor.  10.  12-18.  69  2  Cor.  11.  31. 

67  2  Cor.  12.  16.  702  Cor.  11.  3. 
88  2  Cor.  12.  16-18. 


246  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

craftiness  are  the  characteristics  of  Satan  and  not  of  our 
Saviour  or  of  any  of  his  followers.  You  accuse  me  of 
being  crafty  and  catching  people  with  guile;  but  I  tell  you 
that  we  have  renounced  all  the  hidden  things  of  shame,  not 
walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling  the  word  of  God  deceit- 
fully, but  by  the  manifestation  of  the  truth  commending 
ourselves  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God."  71 
These  statements  surely  are  clear  enough  to  make  Paul's 
position  plain.  Does  anyone  suppose  that  he  would  say, 
"We  have  renounced  the  hidden  things  of  shame,  not  walk- 
ing in  craftiness,"  and  in  the  same  epistle  would  confess, 
"Being  crafty,  I  caught  you  with  guile"?  Paul  is  not  cap- 
able of  such  a  flat  contradiction.  The  latter  statement  is 
quoted  from  the  slanderous  tongues  which  were  wagging 
behind  the  apostle's  back  there  at  Corinth,  and  they  ought 
to  be  put  into  quotation  marks,  as  the  remainder  of  the 
epistle  plainly  shows.  Paul  had  written  to  the  Thessalo- 
nians,  "Our  exhortation  is  not  in  guile,"72  and  what  was 
true  of  his  ministry  in  Thessalonica  was  equally  true  of  it 
everywhere.  Paul  agrees  with  Peter,  who  quotes  from  the 
psalmist  in  his  epistle, 

He  that  would  love  life, 

And  see  good  days, 

Let  him  refrain  his  tongue  from  evil, 

And  his  lips  that  they  speak  no  guile, 73 

and  who  says  of  the  Christ  that  he  left  us  an  example, 
that  we  should  follow  his  steps,  who  did  no  sin,  neither 
was  guile  found  in  his  mouth,74  and  who  exhorts  all  Chris- 
tians therefore  to  put  away  all  wickedness,  and  all  guile, 
and  hypocrisies.75  If  anyone  wants  to  indulge  in  craft  and 
in  guile,  they  must  go  somewhere  else  than  to  Paul  or  to 
Peter  or  to  Christ  for  an  indorsement  of  their  procedure. 


71  2  Cor.  4.  2.  74  1  Pet.  2.  21,  22. 

"  1  Thess.  2.  3.  76  1  Pet.  2.  1. 

73 1  Pet.  3.  10. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  247 

Paul  renounced  and  denounced  all  such  things.  It  was  the 
basest  kind  of  slander  which  said  he  indulged  in  anything 
of  the  kind. 

(6)  "What  is  he  doing  with  all  his  money  which  he  is 
collecting?  He  says  that  it  is  for  the  poor  at  Jerusalem, 
but  who  knows?  He  pretends  to  work  for  his  living,  and 
he  refuses  to  take  any  salary  from  you ;  but  may  it  not  be 
possible  that  he  gets  his  salary  indirectly  in  this  manner? 
He  and  his  accomplices  may  be  fleecing  you  for  their  own 
benefit.  He  may  be  an  embezzler,  and  this  money  may 
never  get  any  farther  than  his  own  pocket.  He  is  a  Jew, 
and  the  Jews  are  notorious  for  their  love  of  money.  Why 
should  we  consider  him  an  exception  at  this  point?"76 
This  must  have  cut  Paul  to  the  heart.  Money-raising  was 
the  most  disagreeable  part  of  his  work,  and  to  have  it  made 
the  basis  of  such  slanders  against  him  must  have  seemed 
cruel  indeed.  It  was  hard  to  ask  these  people  for  money 
in  the  first  place.  They  were  poor,  and  it  was  out  of  their 
poverty  that  they  must  contribute.  They  had  made  many 
sacrifices  for  the  cause  already.  It  was  hard  to  ask  them 
to  give  of  their  scanty  means  for  the  help  of  brethren  they 
never  had  seen  and  to  whom  their  obligation  may  not  have 
seemed  very  clear.  Paul  must  have  grudged  all  the  time  he 
gave  to  money-raising.  It  was  so  much  time  lost  to  preach- 
ing and  to  the  work  he  enjoyed  much  more.  Now  that  a 
considerable  sum  was  in  hand,  there  were  those  who  were 
insinuating  that  he  was  appropriating  it  for  himself.  They 
were  suspicious  in  the  matter;  and  he  hastens  to  assure 
them  all  that  he  has  taken  especial  pains  to  avoid  any 
occasion  for  blame  in  the  matter  of  the  bounty  which  was 
ministered  by  them,  taking  thought  for  things  honorable, 
not  only  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  but  also  in  the  sight  of 
men.77  Such  precautions  had  been  taken  beforehand  as  to 
render  harmless  any  such  accusations  as  these.     Paul  had 

76  2  Cor.  12.  16-19;  8.  20-23. 

77  2  Cor.  8.  20. 


248  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

foreseen  them  and  forestalled  them  by  such  arrangements 
as  safeguarded  both  the  collection  and  his  reputation. 

Paul  was  a  practical  man  and  he  was  not  likely  to  be 
caught  in  any  loose  business  methods.  The  books  were  open 
to  inspection.  The  guarantors  were  at  hand.  Anybody 
could  satisfy  himself  that  Paul  was  uncompromised  in  this 
matter.  His  conscience  was  clear.  His  proofs  were  readily 
available.  He  must  have  felt  all  the  more  the  essential 
meanness  of  the  insinuations  against  him.  It  was  true  that 
he  had  not  asked  any  personal  help  or  received  any  personal 
salary  from  them.  The  reason  for  that  was  that  he  did  not 
care  to  burden  them.TS  It  was  a  great  burden  to  him — 
the  necessity  for  self-support.  It  hindered  the  free  exer- 
cise of  his  missionary  powers.  It  was  a  continual  sacri- 
fice which  he  made  in  their  behalf.  He  would  not  benumb 
them.  The  verb  in  the  Greek  suggests  the  paralyzing  shock 
given  by  a  torpedo  fish.  He  would  not  paralyze  their 
faith  or  their  Christian  enthusiasm  by  any  appeals  for 
money  for  himself.  He  had  done  everything  possible 
to  avoid  any  suspicion  of  covetousness  on  his  part.  He 
always  had  taught  and  he  had  believed  that  covetousness 
was  radically  unchristian.  The  Master  became  poor  that 
others  might  be  enriched ;  and  he  had  followed  the  Master's 
example  and  had  been  willing  to  be  and  to  remain  poor 
for  their  sakes.  Yet  at  this  very  point  where  he  always  had 
been  most  careful  his  motives  now  were  attacked  and 
impugned.  Could  perverse  malice  go  any  farther  than 
that  ?    Yes,  it  went  one  or  two  steps  farther. 

(7)  Paul's  enemies  said,  "Evidently  his  mind  has  been 
affected.  There  is  a  trace  of  madness  in  his  visions  and 
revelations.  What  he  calls  faith  is  reckless  folly.  This 
holy  zeal  of  his  is  merely  eccentricity.  He  is  a  good  deal 
of  a  fool.  Much  that  he  says  is  foolish.  Much  of  his 
conduct   is    foolishness." 70      In   the   passages   cited,    Paul 

78  2  Cor.  11.  9;  12.  14,  16. 

79  2  Cor.  5.  13;  11.  16-19;  I2-  6>  lI- 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  249 

makes  ironical  reference  to  their  charges.  "Am  I  beside 
myself?  It  is  unto  God.  Am  I  a  fool?  Then  bear  with 
me ;  as  a  fool  receive  me.  Have  I  become  foolish  ?  It  is 
because  you  have  compelled  me."  There  was  just  one 
further  step  for  Paul's  enemies  to  take. 

(8)  They  said :  "He  manifestly  is  forsaken  of  God.  The 
persecutions  he  encounters  everywhere  are  a  proof  of  that 
fact.  In  his  bodily  afflictions  he  carries  about  with  him  the 
manifest  token  of  God's  displeasure  with  him.  The  opposi- 
tion he  stirs  up  among  the  people  of  God  wherever  he 
goes  is  in  itself  a  guarantee  that  God  has  set  himself  against 
him."  80  What  does  Paul  say  to  this?  "Our  outward  man 
is  decaying,  yet  our  inward  man  is  renewed  day  by  day.81 
It  is  true  that  I  have  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  and  that  I  have 
besought  the  Lord  thrice  that  I  might  be  rid  of  it;  but  he 
has  given  me  to  understand  that  whom  the  Lord  loveth 
he  chasteneth  and  that  his  grace  will  be  sufficient  for  me.82 
Therefore,  though  I  may  be  pressed  on  every  side,  I  am 
not  straitened ;  though  I  may  be  perplexed,  I  am  not  in 
despair;  though  I  may  be  pursued,  I  am  not,  as  you  say, 
forsaken;  I  am  smitten  down,  but  not  destroyed.83  These 
things  which  you  call  the  marks  of  God's  displeasure  I  call 
the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  My  body  had  been  branded 
with  them.84  My  ministry  has  been  filled  with  them.  In 
much  patience,  in  afflictions,  in  necessities,  in  distresses, 
in  stripes,  in  imprisonments,  in  tumults,  in  labors,  in  watch- 
ings,  in  fastings,  by  glory  and  dishonor,  by  evil  report  and 
good  report;  as  deceivers,  as  you  slanderously  call  us,  and 
yet  true;  as  unknown,  a  nobody  with  no  credentials  as  you 
say  of  us,  and  yet  well  known;  as  dying,  and  behold,  we 
live ;  as  chastened,  and  not  killed ;  as  sorrowful,  yet  always 
rejoicing;  as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich ;  as  having  nothing, 
and  yet  possessing  all  things,  we   commend   ourself   as   a 

8,9. 


80  2  Cor.  4.  7-17;  12.  7-10.       **  2  Cor.  4.  8 

81  2  Cor.  4.  16.  "Gal.  6.  17. 

82  2  Cor.  12.  7,  9. 


250  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

true  minister  of  God  and  a  true  disciple  of  Jesus  instead 
of  one  forsaken  by  him  and  under  the  ban  of  his  dis- 
pleasure.85 If  any  man  trusteth  in  himself  that  he  is 
Christ's,  let  him  consider  this  again  with  himself,  that,  even 
as  he  is  Christ's,  so  also  are  we.86  We  have  every  reason 
to  be  sure  that  we  are  approved  by  him.  We  find  that 
assurance  all-sufficient  for  our  need." 

Here,  then,  are  the  slanders  which  have  led  to  the  writ- 
ing of  this  epistle.  His  enemies  said  of  Paul  that,  as  to 
person,  he  was  weak  and  contemptible ;  as  to  his  speech, 
it  was  rude  and  of  no  account ;  as  to  his  authority,  it  was 
very  questionable,  as  he  has  no  credentials  from  Jesus  or 
the  apostles,  and  he  must  be  an  upstart  and  no  true  apostle ; 
as  to  his  teaching,  it  is  obscure,  corrupt,  selfish,  and  untrue ; 
as  to  his  personal  character,  he  is  unreliable,  cowardly, 
carnal,  boastful,  crafty,  possibly  an  embezzler,  often  beside 
himself,  and  surely  forsaken  of  God.  People  who  did  not 
know  Paul,  and  who  heard  these  things  said  about  him, 
must  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  a  vile  im- 
postor, branded  in  body,  of  insane  mind,  of  impure  motives, 
and  of  an  utterly  perverted  and  selfish  heart.  People  who 
knew  Paul,  and  who  heard  these  things  said  about  him,  must 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  fiendish  malice  could  have 
gone  no  farther  in  misrepresentation  of  him. 

We  close  this  study  of  the  slanders  against  Paul  with 
some  practical  conclusions : 

i.  The  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Second  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  is  to  be  found  in  the  proper  use  of  quota- 
tion marks.  There  were  no  quotation  marks  in  the  original 
manuscript;  and  there  did  not  need  to  be,  for  everybody 
concerned  would  recognize  the  phrases  and  sayings  of 
Paul's  enemies  whenever  they  occurred  in  the  epistle.  There 
are  no  quotation  marks  in  any  of  our  oldest  manuscripts 
and  there  are  none  in  our  English  versions;  and  this  be- 

86  2  Cor.  6.  4-10. 
86  2  Cor.  10.  7 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  251 

comes  a  more  serious  matter,  for  after  the  centuries  the 
words  and  phrases  and  sentences  quoted  from  his  slan- 
derers by  Paul  are  not  so  clearly  definable  by  us  as  they 
were  by  the  Corinthians,  and  the  result  has  been  that  in 
many  instances  these  slanders  have  come  to  be  accepted 
as  truths  uttered  by  Paul  concerning  himself ! 

One  glaring  illustration  of  the  absurdity  and  the  iniquity 
of  such  a  conclusion  is  to  be  seen  in  12.  16,  where  Paul  is 
commonly  supposed  to  have  said,  "Being  crafty,  I  caught 
you  with  guile" !  We  have  seen  how  utterly  opposed  such 
a  conclusion  is  to  the  whole  tenor  of  Paul's  teaching  and  to 
the  whole  testimony  of  his  life.  The  words  ought  to  be 
put  into  quotation  marks  and  thus  to  be  designated  as  a 
slander  of  his  enemies  to  which  Paul  proceeds  to  make  a 
definite  denial,  and  then  the  passage  becomes  easy  of  inter- 
pretation. The  same  thing  is  true  in  every  chapter  of  the 
epistle.  We  need  to  remember  that  Paul  is  writing  in  self- 
defense,  and  that  he  is  quoting  continually  what  has  been 
said  about  him  and  making  direct  and  indirect  answer  to  the 
charges  of  his  foes.  The  judicious  insertion  of  quotation 
marks  throughout  this  epistle  would  do  more  to  make  its 
meaning  clear  than  any  other  help  we  could  devise.  The 
marking  of  quoted  words,  phrases,  and  sentences  would 
illuminate  the  text  and  make  the  epistle  seem  like  another 
and  a  new  epistle. 

2.  The  most  consistent  life  and  the  purest  motives  may 
be  misconstrued  and  maligned.  Did  Paul  work  night  and 
day  to  relieve  these  Corinthians  from  the  necessity  of  his 
support  ?  There  were  those  who  said  that  he  did  it  because 
he  felt  that  he  was  no  true  apostle  and  therefore  did  not 
dare  to  burden  them  with  his  maintenance.  Did  Paul  walk 
in  all  humility  of  apostolic  service?  There  were  those  who 
said  that  he  was  abasing  himself.  Did  he  narrate  his  suffer- 
ings and  his  persecutions  for  the  cause  of  Christ  in  such 
a  way  as  should  have  touched  a  heart  of  stone?  There  were 
those   who   said   that   he   was  boasting  and    forever  com- 


252  PAUL  AND  HIS  EHSTLES 

mending  himself.  Was  he  lenient  in  his  treatment  of 
wrongdoers?  They  said  that  he  was  cowardly.  Was  he 
justly  severe  upon  wrongdoing?  They  said  that  he  was 
arrogant  and  overbearing  and  tyrannical.  Did  he  change 
his  plans?  They  said  that  he  was  unreliable  and  insincere 
and  a  deceiver.  Did  he  sacrifice  himself  to  the  taking  up 
of  a  collection  for  the  poor  saints  in  Jerusalem?  There 
were  those  who  hinted  that  that  collection  never  would 
reach  its  destination.  Did  he  lay  aside  his  natural  reserve 
and  admit  them  to  the  Holy  of  holies  of  his  personal  expe- 
rience and  tell  them  of  visions  and  revelations  from  the 
Lord?  There  were  those  who  suggested  at  once  that  he 
was  not  quite  sane.  Did  he  undergo  such  perils  as  were 
not  equaled  even  in  that  heroic  age  of  the  church?  There 
were  some  who  said  that  all  his  afflictions  proved  that  he 
was  reprobated  of  God.  Did  he  tell  these  slanderers  what 
he  thought  about  them  and  give  them  the  tongue-lashing 
which  they  richly  deserved?  Then  they  said  that  he  was 
too  passionate  to  be  an  apostle  of  the  patient  Christ.  It 
would  have  made  no  difference  what  Taul  did,  they  would 
have  found  fault  with  it.  He  could  have  done  nothing 
which  they  would  not  have  maligned  and  twisted  into  its 
opposite  character.  The  only  thing  for  a  servant  of  Christ 
to  do  when  he  is  beset  by  such  people  is  to  trust  in  God 
and  go  ahead  and  hope  and  pray  for  his  own  vindication. 

3.  Sometimes  it  may  be  best  simply  to  ignore  personal 
slanders,  in  the  spirit  of  that  inscription  over  the  gateway 
to  Marischal  College  at  Aberdeen:  "They  say!  What  do 
they  say  ?  Well,  let  them  say !"  Sometimes,  however,  other 
than  personal  interests  are  involved,  and  it  may  be  an  injury 
to  the  cause  we  represent  if  we  keep  silent  concerning 
malicious  lies  about  us.  Then  it  is  our  duty  to  make  the 
answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward  God,  even  as  Paul  does 
here.  Paul  stands  upon  his  defense.  There  is  no  egotism 
in  this  epistle.  It  is  a  manly  utterance  throughout.  All  the 
glorying  here  is  glorying  in  the  Lord.    Paul  sets  down  these 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  253 

sayings  of  his  slanderers  and  then  puts  over  against  them 
the  facts  of  his  teaching  and  life.  There  he  leaves  the 
case,  in  the  spirit  of  that  old  Roman  who  said,  "My  accuser 
says  that  I  have  taken  bribes  from  the  enemy.  I,  M. 
/Emilius  Scaurus,  deny  it.  Utri  creditis,  Quiritesf — Which 
of  the  two  do  you  believe,  gentlemen?"  It  was  a  saying 
of  the  Jewish  rabbis,  "There  are  three  crowns;  the  crown 
of  the  Law,  the  crown  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  crown  of 
royalty;  but  the  crown  of  a  good  name  mounts  above  them 
all"  87  It  is  the  crown  of  his  good  name  which  Paul  here 
snatches  from  those  who  would  fling  it  into  the  dust.  There 
is  much  which  is  personal  in  this  reply  to  his  critics;  and 
that  makes  the  epistle  doubly  valuable  to  us.  We  get  an 
insight  into  the  heart  of  the  apostle  which  no  other  of  his 
writings  can  give  us. 

IV.  The  Main  Divisions  of  the  Epistle 

There  are  three  of  these.  Chapters  8  and  9  have  a  dis- 
tinct theme,  and  they  separate  the  preceding  chapters  from 
those  which  follow  them.  Godet  suggests  that  the  three 
divisions  of  the  epistle  thus  made  refer  in  order  to  the  past, 
the  present,  and  the  future.  Zahn  agrees,  "The  three  sec- 
tions of  the  letter  treat  respectively  the  immediate  past 
with  its  misunderstandings  and  explanations,  the  present 
with  its  practical  problems,  and  the  near  future  with  its 
anxieties."  88 

1.  Chapters  1-7.  Personal  Vindication  of  His  Min- 
istry. Paul  would  gain  the  sympathy  and  the  affection  of 
his  Corinthian  converts.  He  reminds  them  how  much  he 
has  suffered  in  their  behalf,  and  how  anxious  he  always  is 
for  their  welfare.  There  is  an  undercurrent  of  indignation 
in  all  he  says.  Chapters  3,  4,  and  5  show  how  the  ministry 
of  the  New  Testament  excels  that  of  the  old  covenant  in 
glory,  and  in  his  description  of  the  New  Testament  min- 

87  Pirke,  Avoth.,  iv,  19. 

88  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  vol.  i,  p.  312. 


254  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

istry  Paul  sets  forth  his  own  feelings  and  convictions,  his 
trials  and  his  consolations  as  a  minister  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ.  There  are  many  fine  passages  in  these  chapters ; 
as,  for  example:  i.  3,  the  God  of  all  comfort;  2.  14,  con- 
tinual triumph  in  Christ;  3.  17,  liberty  in  the  Spirit;  3.  18, 
transformation  into  the  image  of  Christ;  4.  17,  light  afflic- 
tion and  eternal  glory;  5.  14,  the  constraining  love  of 
Christ;  5.  17,  a  new  creature  in  Christ;  6.  14,  no  communion 
between  light  and  darkness;  6.  17,  separation  from  the 
unclean  thing;  7.  1,  perfecting  holiness;  7.  10,  godly  sorrow 
and  worldly  sorrow. 

2.    Chapters    8    and    9.      Concerning    the    Collection. 
There  were  several  reasons  why  Paul  was  interested  espe- 
cially in  taking  up  this  collection  and  in  doing  his  utmost 
to  make  it  a  generous  and  worthy  one :  ( I )  The  great  need 
of  the  church  in  Jerusalem  at  this  time.    There  was  famine 
and    distress    among   the   brethren    there,    and    everything 
seemed  to  indicate  that  matters  would  grow  worse  rather 
than  better  with  them.     Then  there  were  other  more  per- 
sonal reasons  which  influenced  Paul  in  the  matter.      (2) 
There  was  his  personal  promise  and  pledge,  made  to  James 
and  Cephas  and  John  when  those  pillars  of  the  church  gave 
the  right-hands  of  fellowship  to  Paul  and  Barnabas  and  told 
them   to   go   among   the    Gentiles   but   to    remember   their 
Jewish  poor.89     This  Paul  and  Barnabas  promised  to  do, 
and  Paul  was  zealous  to  carry  out  his  promise  at  this  point. 
(3)    There  was   his  hope  that  a  generous   contribution 
from  the  Gentile  converts  to  their  Jewish  forbears  in  the 
faith  would  tend  to  reconcile  the  latter  to  the  admission  of 
the  former  to  equal  rights  in  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the 
Church  of  the  Christ.    Surely,  it  would  help  to  break  down 
prejudice  and  to  knit  their  hearts  together  in  love.      (4) 
There  was  his  memory  of  his  career  as  a  persecutor  of  the 
Christians  in  Jerusalem.    He  had  harried  them  out  of  their 

89  Gal.  2.  9,  10. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  255 

homes  and  had  caused  them  untold  distress  and  immeasur- 
able injury.  It  was  his  duty  now  that  he  had  become  con- 
verted and  was  a  Christian  himself  to  do  all  he  could  to 
repair  this  great  injury  and  to  repay  these  brethren  for  the 
distress  he  had  caused  them  in  the  days  of  his  blindness  and 
his  persecuting  zeal. 

It  must  have  taken  all  of  these  motives  combined  to  make 
Paul  undertake  the  collection  of  these  funds.  His  sensitive 
nature  must  have  shrunk  from  such  a  task;  but  when  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  he  devoted  himself  to  it  with  all  of 
his  characteristic  energy.  He  inaugurated  the  work  him- 
self, and  now  he  sends  Titus  and  the  other  brother  to  see 
that  it  is  successfully  carried  through,  (a)  He  urges  the 
example  of  the  poor  but  generous  Macedonians  (8.  1-5). 
Since  they  have  done  so  well,  surely  the  Corinthians  would 
be  anxious  to  do  better,  (b)  He  appeals  to  their  pride 
(8.-  7).  Since  they  abound  in  everything,  in  faith,  and 
utterance,  and  knowledge,  they  ought  to  abound  in  this 
grace  also,  (c)  He  appeals  to  their  love  for  him  (8.  7). 
Let  them  prove  their  loyalty  by  cheerful  giving  at  his  com- 
mand, (d)  He  urges  the  example  of  the  Master,  who  was 
rich  but  gave  up  everything  and  became  poor  that  through 
his  poverty  they  might  become  rich  (8.  9).  (e)  He  tells 
them  that  he  has  given  them  a  good  reputation  wherever  he 
has  gone  and  now  it  is  incumbent  upon  them  to  live  up 
to  it  (9.  2-6)  (/)  He  promises  them  abundant  and  ade- 
quate reward  for  all  their  giving  (9.  6-1 1).  It  is  here  that 
we  read,  "God  loveth  a  hilarious  giver  (IXapov  doTrjv) ."  Too 
many  givers  are  lugubrious  instead  of  hilarious.  Chris- 
tian giving  ought  to  be,  not  grudgingly  nor  of  necessity,  but 
with  all  cheerfulness  and  alacrity.  It  is  here,  too,  that  we 
find  that  glorious  statement  of  the  all-sufficiency  of  God's 
grace  unto  the  all-completeness  of  God's  work.  "God  is 
able  to  make  all  grace  abound  unto  you ;  that  ye,  having 
always  all  sufficiency  in  everything,  may  abound  unto  every 
good  work :  being  enriched  in  everything  unto  all  liberality, 


256  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

which  worketh  through  us  thanksgiving  to  God"  (9.  8,  11). 
(g)  Finally  Paul  suggests  to  them  that  their  liberality  will 
bring  glory  to  God  in  the  closer  union  of  the  Jewish  and 
Gentile  hearts  in  Christian  love  (9.  12-14).  (h)  Then 
he  closes  with  the  exclamation,  "Thanks  be  unto  God  for 
his  unspeakable  gift!"  (9.  15.)  Surely,  if  they  kept  that 
in  view,  they  would  be  willing  to  give  anything  and  every- 
thing to  Him. 

Upon  the  basis  of  these  eight  considerations  Paul  hopes 
for  a  liberal  contribution.  These  two  chapters  are  unique 
in  the  New  Testament.  We  find  in  them  the  fullest  dis- 
cussion of  the  reasons  for  and  the  rewards  of  Christian 
giving  which  the  Scriptures  have  furnished  us.  They  are 
worthy  our  careful  study.  They  are  full  of  suggestion  as 
to  the  motives  which  should  actuate  Christians  in  their 
benevolences  and  as  to  the  legitimate  appeals  which  may 
be  presented  to  them.  We  notice  the  rich  variety  of  terms 
which  Paul  here  uses:  "grace,  liberality,  bounty,  right- 
eousness, ministration,  contribution,  gift."  They  all  stand 
for  the  same  thing.  They  all  mean  the  collection.  If  any- 
one finds  it  an  irksome  task  to  raise  money  for  any  good 
and  necessary  cause,  let  him  study  the  example  of  the 
great  apostle  here.  Paul  gave  much  of  his  time  to  the  col- 
lection of  money. 

3.  Chapters  10-13.  "The  Great  Invective."90  Robert- 
son thus  denominates  this  section.  It  is  almost  wholly  a 
personal  defense.  There  have  been  mutterings  of  a  storm 
in  all  the  epistle,  but  now  the  thunder  begins  to  crash  and 
the  lightning  to  play,  and  the  tempest  bursts  upon  us  in 
all  its  fury.  Paul  vindicates  his  apostleship  by  an  appeal 
to  (1)  the  sufferings  he  had  undergone  for  the  cause,  (2) 
the  visions  and  revelations  he  had  had  in  the  Lord,  and  (3) 
the  signs  and  wonders  and  mighty  works  in  the  churches  he 
had  founded.     The  epistle  closes  with  the  apostolic  bene- 


80  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  I,  p.  496. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  257 

diction,  the  fullest  form  of  blessing  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  one  generally  adopted  in  the  church  to 
close  its  services.  It  is  as  though  Paul  would  make  up  for 
the  severity  of  certain  portions  of  his  letter  by  the  amplitude 
of  the  closing  benediction.  He  commends  them  to  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the  love  of  God,  which 
has  made  this  grace  a  possibility,  and  to  the  communion 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  through  which  alone  this  love  and  grace 
may  be  appropriated  and  enjoyed  (13.  14).  George  Her- 
bert has  said :  "What  an  admirable  epistle  is  the  Second  to 
the  Corinthians!  How  full  of  affections!  He  joys  and 
he  is  sorry,  he  grieves  and  he  glories ;  never  was  there  such 
care  of  a  flock  expressed,  save  in  the  great  Shepherd  of  the 
fold,  who  first  shed  tears  over  Jerusalem,  and  afterward 
blood." 

V.  General  Characteristics  of  the  Epistle 

1.  In  some  particulars  this  is  the  most  puzzling  of  the 
Pauline  epistles.  The  constructions  frequently  are  very 
difficult,  and  the  sense  is  correspondingly  obscure.  The 
letter  was  written  in  haste,  and  at  high  tension  of  feeling. 
Words  are  omitted  and  so  much  is  taken  for  granted 
which  must  have  been  familiar  enough  to  Paul  and  to  his 
first  readers,  but  which  we  do  not  so  readily  understand. 
No  epistle  needs  so  much  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
background  of  previous  personal  experience  to  explain  its 
allusions  and  its  phrases.  For  the  most  part  we  are  left 
to  guess  at  these.  WTiere  it  seems  most  simple  the  greatest 
obscurity  may  lurk.  It  is  a  jungle,  and  there  are  no  clear 
paths  through  it.  Deissmann  says  of  it,  "It  is  the  most 
letterlike  of  all  the  letters  of  Paul,  though  that  to  Philemon 
may  appear  on  the  surface  to  have  a  better  claim  to  that 
position.  The  great  difficulty  in  the  understanding  of  it  is 
due  to  the  very  fact  that  it  is  so  truly  a  letter,  so  full  of 
allusions  and  familiar  references,  so  pervaded  with  irony 
and    with    a    depression    which    struggles    against    itself — 


258  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

matters  of  which  only  the  writer  and  the  readers  of  it 
understood  the  purport,  but  which  we,  for  the  most  part, 
can  ascertain  only  approximately."  91 

2.  It  is  the  most  intensely  personal  of  the  Pauline  epistles. 
The  individuality  of  the  apostle  is  more  apparent  than  in 
any  other  of  his  writings.  Here  only  he  tells  us  about 
those  two  important  experiences  in  his  own  life,  the  spirit- 
ual ecstasy  in  which  he  was  rapt  into  the  third  heaven,  and 
the  spiritual  and  mental  and  physical  agony  in  which  he 
learned  humility  and  dependence  upon  Christ,  an  experience 
of  paradise  and  an  experience  of  purgatory.  We  study 
this  letter  and  we  can  see  the  apostle's  eye  flash  with  indig- 
nation and  then  fill  with  tears.  We  can  see  his  face  flush 
with  righteous  anger  and  then  pale  with  longing  and  anxiety. 
We  can  see  his  countenance  cloud  with  vehement  and  pas- 
sionate denial  of  his  slanderers  and  then  light  up  again  with 
love  and  hope.  We  can  see  his  head  lift  itself  with  all 
dignity  and  independence  and  then  bow  again  in  deepest 
humility.  He  can  boast  and  he  can  be  abased.  He  can  be 
tactful  and  tender.  He  can  be  uncompromising  with  any 
antagonist  of  the  truth.  He  is  full  of  fervor  and  full  of 
faith.  He  is  ready  for  any  personal  sacrifice,  only  the  cause 
he  represents  must  not  be  sacrificed.  He  is  one  with  his 
mission.  Any  attack  upon  him  may  injure  its  success.  He 
defends  himself  that  his  mission  may  be  secure. 

The  epistle,  therefore,  while  it  brings  before  us  the  most 
vivid  picture  we  have  of  the  character  of  the  apostle,  gives 
us  deep  insight  into  his  conception  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples, the  motives  and  aspirations,  the  consolations  and  the 
consummation  of  the  gospel  he  had  to  preach.  Findlay  has 
written:  "To  see  Paul  at  his  greatest  as  a  thinker  and  a 
theologian,  we  turn  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans;  to  know 
him  as  a  saint,  we  read  the  Philippian  epistle.  But  if  we 
would  measure  him  as  a  man  amongst  men,  and  as  a  min- 


91  Bible  Studies,  p.  47. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  259 

ister  of  Christ;  if  we  would  sound  the  depths  of  his  heart 
and  realize  the  force  and  fire  of  his  nature,  the  ascendency 
of  his  genius,  and  the  charm  of  his  manner  and  disposition, 
we  must  thoroughly  understand  the  second  letter  to  the 
Corinthians."  92 

3.  This  is  the  most  emotional  of  the  Pauline  epistles. 
Various  emotions  are  striving  for  the  mastery  throughout. 
Now  indignation  seems  uppermost  and  now  sorrow  and 
now  holy  exultation.  Sometimes  the  apostle's  humility  is 
to  the  front  and  sometimes  his  wounded  dignity.  Now  he 
is  dominated  by  an  energy  of  assault  and  now  he  is  shrink- 
ing from  the  cruel  darts  of  his  foes.  J.  Llewelyn  Davies  has 
said  of  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians :  "The  letter 
exhibits  a  tumult  of  contending  emotions.  Wounded  affec- 
tion, joy,  self-respect,  hatred  of  self-assertion,  conscious- 
ness of  the  authority  and  the  importance  of  his  ministry, 
scorn  of  his  opponents,  toss  themselves  like  waves,  some- 
times against  each  other,  on  the  troubled  sea  of  his  mind. 
.  .  .  Strong  language,  not  seldom  stronger  than  the  occa- 
sion seems  to  warrant,  figurative  expressions,  abrupt  turns, 
phrases  seized  and  flung  at  his  assailants,  words  made  up, 
iterated,  played  upon,  mark  this  epistle  far  more  than  any 
other  of  the  apostle's  letters.  .  .  .  Even  the  calmer  parts 
of  the  letter  are  influenced  as  to  their  style  by  the  emotion 
which  breaks  out  in  the  more  vehement."  93 

The  hidden  depths  of  the  soul  of  Paul  are  revealed  in 
this  alternating  progress  of  his  thought.  Godet  compares 
it  to  a  Grand  Canon  and  says,  "As  a  geologist  who  wishes 
to  study  the  deepest  strata  of  the  globe's  crust  will  not  go 
to  a  flat  country  but  will  betake  himself  to  a  region  abound- 
ing in  deep  ravines  where  the  torrents  incessantly  excavate 
and  reexcavate  the  soil  of  the  valley,  so  he  who  would 
know  in  all  its  depths  the  soul  of  Paul  will  have  to  open 
the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians."    There  is  one  thing 

92  Op.  cit.,  p.  no. 

93  Expositor,  IV,  iv,  pp.  299,  300. 


260  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

to  be  noticed  in  all  this  epistle  and  that  is  that  the  apostle 
never  loses  his  self-control.  He  is  swept  along  by  a  storm 
of  emotion,  but  he  always  is  master  of  the  storm.  In  his 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  we  read  his  exhortation,  "Be  ye 
angry,  and  sin  not,"  94  and  we  could  have  no  better  example 
of  the  fulfillment  of  that  command  than  we  find  in  this 
epistle. 

Weizsacker  has  estimated  the  apostle  rightly  at  this  point, 
when  he  says:  "Joy  and  heaviness,  anxiety  and  hope,  trust 
and  resentment,  anger  and  love  follow  one  another,  the  one 
as  intense  as  the  other.  Yet  there  is  no  touch  of  change- 
ableness,  nor  any  contradiction.  The  circumstances  dictate 
and  justify  it  all,  and  he  is  master  of  it  all,  the  same 
throughout,  and  always  his  whole  self.  An  extraordinary 
susceptibility  of  feeling  and  impression,  such  as  only  an 
extraordinary  character  can  hold  in  control,"  95  is  set  forth 
here.  That  is  the  wonder  of  it  all,  that  a  man  of  such 
delicate  sensibility  can  be  so  firm  and  so  self-controlled. 
The  life  and  language  of  this  man  are  controlled  by  Christ. 
It  is  unto  Christ  that  he  presents  his  labor  and  his  sorrow 
and  his  love.     He  was  always  ready  to  say, 

"Yet  it  was  well,  and  Thou  hast  said  in  season, 
'As  is  the  master  shall  the  servant  be': 
Let  me  not  subtly  slide  into  the  treason, 

Seeking  an  honor  which  they  gave  not  Thee; 

"Never  at  even,  pillowed  on  a  pleasure, 
Sleep  with  the  wings  of  aspiration  furled, 
Hide  the  last  mite  of  the  forbidden  treasure, 
Keep  for  my  joy  a  world  within  the  world; 

"Nay,  but  much  rather  let  me,  late  returning, 
Bruised  of  my  brethren,  wounded  from  within, 
Stoop  with  sad  countenance  and  blushes  burning, 
Bitter  with  weariness  and  sick  with  sin — 


94  Eph.  4.  26. 

,J6  Apost.  Ztlter,  p.  328. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  261 

"Then  as  I  weary  me  and  long  and  languish, 
Nowise  availing  from  that  pain  to  part — 
Desperate  tides  of  the  whole  great  world's  anguish 
Forced  through  the  channels  of  a  single  heart — 

"Straight  to  thy  presence  get  me  and  reveal  it, 
Nothing  ashamed  of  tears  upon  thy  feet, 
Show  the  sore  wound  and  beg  thine  hand  to  heal  it, 
Pour  thee  the  bitter,  pray  thee  for  the  sweet."96 

VI.  The  Style  of  the  Epistle 

We  have  in  this  epistle  the  Pauline  style  with  all  of  its 
characteristics  intensified.  The  sentences  frequently  are 
broken  and  involved  and  obscure.  There  is  a  greater 
variety  of  style,  and  it  has  a  larger  number  of  peculiar  feat- 
ures. Godet  says,  "The  language  is  all  full  of  emotion,  of 
outpourings  of  grief,  anguish,  and  love,  outbursts  of  indig- 
nation, quivering  sarcasms,  dashes  like  torrents  of  lava. 
Such  is  the  style  of  Second  Corinthians."  Marvin  R. 
Vincent  says  of  the  epistle,  "Ecstatic  thanksgiving  and  cut- 
ting irony,  self-assertion  and  self-abnegation,  commenda- 
tion, warning,  and  authority,  paradox  and  apology  all  meet 
and  cross  and  seethe,  and  yet  out  of  the  swirling  eddies 
rise  like  rocks  grand  Christian  principles  and  inspiring 
hopes."  Erasmus  compared  the  flow  of  the  thought  in 
this  epistle  to  "a  river  which  sometimes  flows  in  a  gentle 
stream,  sometimes  rushes  down  as  a  torrent  bearing  all 
before  it,  sometimes  spreads  out  like  a  placid  lake,  some- 
times loses  itself,  as  it  were,  in  the  sand,  and  breaks  out  in 
its  fullness  at  some  unexpected  place." 

VII.  Some  Noteworthy  Features  of  the  Epistle 

1.  In  11.  23-33  we  have  what  has  been  called  "the  most 
marvelous  fragment  ever  written  in  any  biography."     We 


96  Myers,  Saint  Paul,  pp.  3,  4. 


262  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

learn  from  it  that  in  the  book  of  Aets  we  have  only  a  tithe 
of  the  sufferings  and  the  experiences  of  the  apostle  Paul. 
Of  many  of  the  things  mentioned  here  we  have  no  record 
anywhere  else. 

2.  The  metaphors  are  noteworthy:  (i)  Treasure  in 
earthen  vessels  (4.  7),  with  a  possible  reference  to  Gideon's 
lamps.  (2)  Tabernacling  here,  but  housed  eternally 
(5-  0-  (3)  Affliction  is  a  light  weight  and  glory  will  be 
an  eternal  one  (4.  17).  (4)  In  2.  17  Paul  says  that  he  does 
not  peddle  the  word  of  God,  does  not  make  merchandise 
of  it.  (5)  In  11.  8  he  says  he  did  not  paralyze  the  Corin- 
thians with  any  demands  of  money  from  them  for  his  own 
use.  Others  of  Paul's  metaphors  here  are  pretty  badly 
mixed,  as  is  natural  in  an  epistle  written  in  haste  and  great 
emotion.  (6)  In  5.  2  Paul  speaks  of  our  longing  to  be 
clothed  upon  with  our  house  which  is  from  heaven,  in  order 
that  we  may  not  be  found  naked.  It  is  an  unusual  figure 
of  speech  at  least.  People  do  not  commonly  speak  of  their 
houses  as  clothing  or  of  their  clothing  as  a  house.  (7)  In 
3.  2  the  Corinthians  are  Paul's  epistle,  written  in  his  heart, 
and  in  3.  3  they  are  Christ's  epistle  written  in  their  own 
hearts.  (8)  In  2.  14  the  knowledge  of  Christ  is  a  sweet 
savor,  and  in  2.  15  the  apostles  and  preachers  of  the  Christ 
are  a  sweet  savor. 

3.  Certain  words  are  frequently  repeated  and  become  key- 
notes of  certain  sections  or  of  the  entire  epistle:  (1) 
"Affliction"  is  the  dominant  word  in  the  first  section  of  the 
epistle  (1.  4,  6,  8;  2.  4;  4.  8,  17;  6.  4;  7.  4;  8.  13).  (2) 
"Comfort"  and  "comforting"  are  found  twenty-eight  times 
in  the  epistle  (1.  3,  4;  7.  4-7,  etc.)  Chronologically,  this  is 
the  first  appearance  of  this  word  in  the  New  Testament.  It 
has  the  double  meaning  of  "counsel"  and  "consolation." 
The  Paraclete  is  our  Comforter,  and  he  is  also  our  Advo- 
cate, called  to  our  side  to  counsel  and  aid.  "Tribulation" 
and  "consolation"  are  introduced  together  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of   the   epistle.      The   apostle   is    sad   at   heart    as   he 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  263 

begins  his  dictation,  but  nevertheless  he  begins  with  rejoic- 
ing. Even  as  he  pictures  his  distress  and  his  tribulation 
he  gives  reason  after  reason  for  his  abiding  joy:  (a)  God 
comforts  him  (1.  4).  (b)  He  has  a  good  conscience  (1. 
12).  (c)  There  are  open  doors  for  the  gospel  (2.  12). 
(d)  lie  has  continuous  spiritual  triumph  (2.  14).  (3) 
"Boast"  and  "boasting"  become  prominent  words  in  the 
closing  chapters.  They  occur  twenty-nine  times  in  the 
epistle,  and  only  twenty-six  times  in  all  the  rest  of  Paul's 
writings.  Three  times  Paul  makes  the  formal  announce- 
ment, "Now  I  am  going  to  boast."  (4)  Paul  rings  the 
changes  upon  the  word  "weakness"  in  this  epistle  (11.  30; 
12.  5-9;  13.  4,  etc.). 

VIII.  Occasion  and  Place  of  Writing 

First  Corinthians  was  written  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
A.  D.  57,  at  Ephesus.  Later  the  riot  took  place  there 
which  is  described  in  Acts  19.  Immediately  after  this 
Paul  left  Ephesus  and  went  to  Troas,  and  a  door  was 
opened  unto  the  gospel  of  Christ  in  that  place,97  but  Paul 
was  restless  there  and  pushing  on  into  Macedonia  he 
waited  in  some  city  in  that  province  for  the  coming  of  Titus 
with  the  latest  news  from  the  situation  in  Corinth.  When 
he  met  Titus  he  learned  from  him  (1)  that  the  effect  of  a 
former  letter  to  the  Corinthians  was  satisfactory,  and  that 
some  of  the  church  members  were  filled  with  grief  and 
remorse  for  their  conduct,  and  that  the  most  grievous 
offender  was  either  repentant  or  reprobate;  and  (2)  that 
there  was  a  portion  of  the  church  which  was  developing 
a  radical  opposition  to  Paul's  person  and  teaching.  The 
apostle  at  once  wrote  this  second  epistle,  "an  outpouring 
of  personal  feeling  from  beginning  to  end,  full  of  mingled 
tenderness  and  indignation."  The  epistle  was  written  from 
Philippi  or  Thessalonica  or  some  other  city  in  Macedonia 
in  A.  D.  57,  late  in  the  year. 

87  2  Cor.  2.  12, 


264  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

IX.  Evidence  for  the  Epistle 
The  external  evidence  in  the  postapostolic  age  is  very- 
slight.  This  epistle  contrasts  with  First  Corinthians  again 
at  this  point.  Irenseus  is  the  first  to  mention  the  epistle  by 
name.  However,  it  has  been  accepted  almost  universally 
as  Pauline.  The  peculiarly  personal  character  of  so  much 
of  its  contents  would  not  lend  itself  to  frequent  quo- 
tation, and  the  internal  evidence  for  the  Pauline  authorship 
is  exceptionally  strong.  Robertson  says,  "In  its  individual- 
ity of  style,  intensity  of  feeling,  inimitable  expression  of 
the  writer's  idiosyncrasy,  it  may  be  said  to  stand  at  the  head 
of  all  the  Pauline  epistles,  Galatians  not  excepted."  °8  The 
Muratorian  Canon,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Tertullian 
bear  unexceptionable  witness  to  the  authenticity  of  the 
epistle.  Its  genuineness  never  has  been  seriously  ques- 
tioned.   We  cannot  say  as  much  about  its  integrity. 

X.  Integrity  of  the  Epistle 

Semler  first  suggested  that  in  Second  Corinthians  we  had 
portions  of  two  or  more  epistles,  which  in  some  fashion 
unknown  to  us  had  been  joined  together  by  some  copyist 
and  so  had  come  down  to  our  times  as  a  single  epistle.  Not 
much  attention  was  paid  to  this  opinion  until  Hausrath,  of 
Heidelberg,  in  1870  published  a  pamphlet  on  The  Four 
Chapter  Epistle  of  Paul,  in  which  he  argued  that  2  Cor. 
10-13  was  a  portion  of  a  distinct  epistle  which  was  of  ear- 
lier date  than  2  Cor.  1-9.  With  some  differences  of  opin- 
ion as  to  details  the  following  authorities  are  disposed 
to  agree  that  we  have  two  epistles  in  our  Second  Cor- 
inthians; Paulus,  Weisse,  Lipsius.  von  Soden,  Schmiedel, 
Volter,  Pfleiderer,  Bruckner,  Clemen,  Konig,  Krenkel, 
Cramer,  Cone,  McGiffert,  Mackintosh,  Rendall,  Bacon, 
Plummer,  Scott,  Peake,  Adeney,  Kennedy,  and  Moffatt. 
On    the    other    hand,    Holtzmann,    llilgcnfeld,    Beyschlag, 


w  Hastings's  Bible  Dictionary,  I,  p.  491. 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  265 

Klopper.  Weizsacker,  Sabatier,  Godet,  Weiss,  Zahn,  Robert- 
son, White,  Sanday,  and  Shaw  decide  in  favor  of  the  integ- 
rity of  the  epistle.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  the  oppon- 
ents of  the  integrity  can  make  a  very  good  case,  and  that 
there  is  a  possibility  that  they  may  be  correct  in  their  views. 
Some  of  the  reasons  they  give  for  their  conclusion  are  as 
follows:  1.  In  2  Cor.  2.  4  we  read,  "Out  of  much  affliction 
and  anguish  of  heart  I  wrote  to  you  with  many  tears." 
To  what  epistle  does  Paul  refer  when  he  says,  "I  wrote  to 
you  in  much  anguish  and  tears"  ?  Can  it  be  First  Corinth- 
ians, which  is  such  an  orderly  and  comparatively  calm  dis- 
cussion of  a  succession  of  themes?  Would  it  not  apply 
much  better  to  the  writing  of  the  four  chapters  which 
we  call  2  Cor.  10-13?  Surely,  in  all  the  writings  of  Paul  we 
have  no  other  passage  where  the  affliction  and  the  anguish 
are  so  apparent  in  the  composition  and  we  are  so  sure  of 
the  flowing  tears. 

2.  In  2  Cor.  7.  8,  9,  we  read,  "Though  I  made  you  sorry 
with  my  epistle,  I  do  not  regret  it:  though  I  did  regret  it 
(for  I  see  that  that  epistle  made  you  sorry,  though  but  for 
a  season),  I  now  rejoice,  not  that  ye  were  made  sorry,  but 
that  ye  were  made  sorry  unto  repentance."  These  words 
may  be  applied  to  First  Corinthians,  but  they  still  more 
naturally  apply  to  the  greater  severity  of  2  Cor.  10-13. 

3.  In  these  four  closing  chapters  Paul  uses  the  verb, 
"to  boast"  seventeen  times.  The  two  words,  "boast"  and 
"boasting,"  become  characteristic.  Now,  in  2  Cor.  3.  1 
we  read,  "Are  we  beginning  again  to  commend  ourselves?" 
and  in  2  Cor.  5.  12,  "We  are  not  again  commending  ourselves 
unto  you."  If  we  look  for  the  occasion  when  Paul  had 
commended  himself  formerly,  we  may  be  puzzled  to  find 
it,  unless  we  decide  to  put  2.  Cor.  10-13  at  an  earlier  date, 
and  then  these  passages  become  perfectly  clear. 

4.  In  2  Cor.  2.  1  we  read,  "I  determined  this  for  myself, 
that  I  would  not  come  again  to  you  with  sorrow,"  and  in 
I.  23,  "To  spare  you  I    forbarc  to  come  unto  Corinth." 


266  PAUL  AND  HIS  EriSTLES 

We  scarcely  arc  able  to  believe  that  Paul  ever  was  sorry  that 
he  had  written  First  Corinthians,  or  that  he  would  hesitate 
to  visit  Corinth  after  having  written  it;  but  we  easily  can 
believe  that  he  had  some  misgivings  about  the  writing  and 
the  reception  of  2  Cor.  10-13,  and  he  says  explicitly  in  these 
chapters,  "If  I  come  again,  I  will  not  spare"  (13.  2).  If 
he  had  gone  to  Corinth  after  the  writing  of  these  chapters, 
he  would  have  gone  in  sorrow,  and  after  having  made  such 
a  threat  the  only  way  he  could  spare  them  was  by  staying 
away. 

5.  In  2  Cor.  8  we  find  that  Titus  has  just  been  sent  to 
Corinth  on  his  mission,  and  Paul  commends  him  to  their 
loving  reception  in  8.  24.  In  12.  18  reference  is  made  to  a 
past  mission  of  Titus,  in  which  he  had  taken  advantage  of 
no  one  of  them. 

6.  In  2  Cor.  10.  6  Paul  says  that  he  is  in  readiness  to 
avenge  all  disobedience,  when  their  obedience  is  made  full. 
Evidently,  when  Paul  wrote  these  words  he  was  not  certain 
that  all  in  the  Corinthian  church  were  obedient.  In  2  Cor. 
2.  9  we  read,  "For  to  this  end  also  did  I  write,  that  I  might 
know  the  proof  of  you,  whether  ye  are  obedient  in  all 
things,"  and  in  7.  15  Paul  recalls  the  return  of  Titus  and 
his  report,  and  he  says,  "He  remembereth  the  obedience  of 
you  all,  how  with  fear  and  trembling  you  received  him." 
In  10.  6  Paul  was  in  readiness  to  avenge  their  disobedience ; 
and  in  7.  15  he  is  commending  the  obedience  of  them  all. 
How  can  we  reconcile  these  statements?  There  is  no  diffi- 
culty if  we  separate  these  chapters,  and  make  the  four  clos- 
ing chapters  of  earlier  date.  If  we  recognize  in  these 
chapters  a  separate  epistle,  in  all  probability  it  would  be 
written  from  Ephesus  at  some  time  before  the  Ephcsian 
riot  and  Paul's  departure  from  that  city.  7.  Hausrath  and 
Kennedy  point  out  that  if  2  Cor.  io.  16  was  written  in 
Macedonia  we  scarcely  can  interpret  Paul's  statement  liter- 
ally, when  he  expresses  the  hope  that  he  may  preach  the 
gospel  even  unto  the  parts  beyond  them,   since   in   a   line 


SECOND  CORINTHIANS  267 

from  Macedonia  the  parts  beyond  Corinth  would  be  in  the 
continent  of  Africa,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that 
Paul  ever  planned  any  mission  work  in  those  regions ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  he  were  in  Ephesus  when  these  words 
were  written,  the  parts  beyond  Corinth  in  a  line  from 
Ephesus  would  be  Rome  and  Spain,  which  we  know  from 
Rom.  15.  23,  24  Paul  did  intend  to  visit. 

These  considerations  may  fall  short  of  being  conclusive, 
but  they  surely  are  sufficient  to  make  a  plausible  case. 
Those  who  are  ready  to  divide  our  Second  Corinthians  at 
the  close  of  the  ninth  chapter  must  conclude  that  Paul  wrote 
at  least  four  epistles  to  the  Corinthians ;  a  first  epistle,  which 
has  been  lost,  and  which  is  mentioned  in  our  1  Cor.  5.  9,  "I 
wrote  unto  you  in  my  epistle  to  have  no  company  with 
fornicators ;"  and  then  a  second  epistle,  which  we  call  First 
Corinthians ;  and  then  a  third  epistle,  the  beginning  of 
which  has  been  lost  and  which  we  now  locate  in  2  Cor. 
10-13;  and  fourth  and  last,  the  epistle  which  is  contained  in 
our  2  Cor.  1-9. 

XL  Effect  of  the  ErisTLE  or  Epistles 

The  final  outcome  seems  to  have  been  a  happy  one  for 
the  apostle  Paul.  His  enemies  were  either  discountenanced 
or  silenced.  The  church  as  a  whole  continued  to  have  him 
in  high  honor.  He  visited  Corinth  again  later,  and  spent 
the  winter  there ;  and  while  there  he  wrote  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  which  is  comparatively  free  from  all  agitation 
and  is  a  calm  exposition  of  the  fundamentals  of  Paul's 
theology.  We  learn  from  the  book  of  Acts  that  the  collec- 
tion was  made  successfully.90 

XII.  Later  History  of  the  Church 

In  A.  D.  95  Clement  of  Rome  wrote  an  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  from  which  we  gather  that  the  church  then 

39  Acts  20.  4. 


268  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

was  split  into  factions  and  otherwise  was  suffering  from 
many  of  the  ills  against  which  Paul  had  fulminated  in  his 
epistles.  Hegesippus  visited  the  church  in  Corinth  in  A.  D. 
135.  Bishop  Soter,  of  Rome,  in  the  second  century  wrote 
another  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  in  which  he  mentions  the 
fact  that  Paul's  letters  were  read  with  devotion  in  the 
church  of  that  time.  In  the  middle  of  the  third  century 
the  city  of  Corinth  was  ravaged  by  the  Goths,  and  the 
church  came  to  an  end  at  this  date. 

What  a  strange  composite  this  church  at  Corinth  always 
must  have  been !  There  were  slaves  in  its  membership, 
and  there  were  people  who  were  of  aristocratic  circles,  syn- 
agogue and  city  officials.  There  were  some  who  were  rich 
and  there  were  more  who  were  poor.  There  were  Gentiles 
and  Jews,  and  the  distinction  between  the  two  was  just  as 
noticeable  and  radical  then  as  it  is  now.  There  were  some 
who  were  devoted  adherents  of  the  apostle  Paul  and  there 
were  others  who  were  his  bitter  enemies.  There  were 
saintly  women  and  there  were  shrewish  women,  modest 
women  and  women  clamorous  for  their  rights.  There  were 
some  who  were  factious  and  a  few  who  were  licentious. 
Take  it  all  in  all,  it  was  a  strange  composite.  It  is  one  of 
the  marvels  of  history  that  one  little  man  could  dominate 
this  strange  assembly  and  make  it  into  a  Christian  church 
and  give  to  it  his  own  Christian  theology.  The  church  at 
Corinth,  with  all  its  faults  and  all  its  glories,  will  live  for- 
ever as  pictured  in  these  two  Pauline  epistles. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS 

I.  Where  Was  Galatia? 

Gal ati a  proper  lay  north  of  Phrygia  and  Cappadocia. 
It  was  about  two  hundred  miles  long  from  east  to  west 
and  about  a  hundred  miles  in  breadth  from  north  to  south. 
It  was  occupied  in  the  first  Christian  century  by  three  Gallic 
tribes,  the  Trocmi,  the  Tolistoboii,  and  the  Tectosages. 
Their  capital  cities  were  Tavium  at  the  northeast,  Pes- 
sinus  at  the  southwest,  and  Ancyra  about  midway  between 
the  two.  The  Roman  province  of  Galatia  included  Galatia 
proper,  a  part  of  Phrygia,  Pisidia,  and  Lycaonia;  and 
these  latter  included  the  cities  of  Derbe,  Lystra,  Ico- 
nium,  and  Antioch.  The  official  Galatia,  therefore,  was 
much  larger  than  Galatia  proper.  In  the  book  of  Acts 
the  larger  Roman  province  is  never  called  Galatia.  That 
name  is  reserved  for  Galatia  proper.  The  writer  of  the 
book  of  Acts  uses  the  name  in  the  older  and  the  popular 
sense  rather  than  in  the  newer  and  Roman  one.  Does  Paul 
do  the  same  thing?  When  he  writes  to  the  Galatians  and 
to  the  churches  of  Galatia,  does  he  write  to  the  people  and 
to  the  churches  of  Galatia  proper  or  to  the  people  and  the 
churches  of  the  larger  Roman  province  of  Galatia? 

There  is  nothing  in  the  epistle  itself  which  will  decide 
the  question  definitely.  Therefore  there  is  room  for  a 
difference  of  opinion,  and  the  authorities  have  radically 
divided  upon  this  issue.  It  was  believed  very  generally, 
up  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  that  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  was  written  to  the  churches  of  Galatia  proper. 
Within  the  last  century,  however,  a  number  of  authorities 

271 


272  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

have  been  convinced  that  the  epistle  was  written  to  the 
churches  of  Lycaonia  and  Pisidia.  Probably  they  are  still 
in  the  minority,  but  their  thesis  is  growing  in  favor,  and  it 
has  some  most  energetic  and  able  representatives.  Among 
those  who  believe  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  was 
written  to  the  churches  at  Derbe,  Lystra,  lconium,  and 
Antioch,  all  of  them  founded  on  the  first  missionary  journey 
of  Paul  and  Barnabas,  we  may  name  Perrot,  Weizsacker, 
Hausrath,  Weber,  Thiersch,  Paulus,  Bottger,  Mynster,  Nie- 
meyer,  Schenkel,  Steck,  Zahn,  Pfleiderer,  O.  Holtzmann, 
von  Soden,  Renan,  Sabatier,  Ramsay,  Rendall,  Sanday, 
Peake,  Askwith,  Gifford,  McGiffert,  Rackham,  Bacon, 
Bartlet,  Forbes,  Adeney,  and  Shaw. 

The  reasons  urged  for  this  conclusion  are  as  follows : 
i.  We  have  a  full  account  of  the  founding  of  these 
churches  in  the  book  of  Acts.  On  the  North-Galatian 
theory  we  have  no  information  concerning  the  founding  of 
the  Galatian  churches  except  such  fragmentary  hints  as 
may  be  gathered  from  the  epistle  itself.  W'ould  it  be  at 
all  probable  that  the  writer  of  Acts  would  have  omitted  all 
reference  to  the  founding  of  churches  as  important  as  these 
churches  seem  to  be?  The  epistle  has  to  do  with  the  most 
important  controversy  in  the  early  church,  that  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  converted  Gentiles  to  the  ritual  observances  of 
the  Jews.  That  question  had  to  be  settled  once  for  all ;  and 
this  epistle  seems  to  have  settled  it.  Would  it  not  be  most 
natural  that  this  question  should  arise  and  clamor  for  settle- 
ment in  the  first  churches  founded  by  Paul  in  Gentile  terri- 
tory on  the  first  missionary  journey?  Is  this  not  more 
probable  than  that  such  an  important  issue  should  be  fought 
out  in  territory  of  which  we  know  nothing  from  our  New 
Testament  records  and  among  churches  all  trace  of  which 
seems  to  have  been  lost,  not  only  before  but  even  after  the 
writing  of  this  epistle?  It  is  a  choice  between  believing  that 
the  epistle  was  written  to  churches  which  we  know  about 
and  in  which  we  know  that  the  apostle  Paul  was  deeply 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        273 

interested   or   believing  that   it   was   written   to   churches 
whose  very  existence  is  conjectural. 

2.  The  author  of  the  book  of  Acts  uses  popular  terms 
rather  than  official  ones.  Paul,  however,  always  uses  the 
official  Roman  terms  when  he  speaks  of  the  Roman  prov- 
inces. He  mentions  Asia,  Macedonia,  and  Achaia  in  his 
writings,  and  always  prefers  the  proper  Roman  official 
term  to  the  popular  designations  to  be  found  in  Acts.  Now 
for  seventy-five  years  the  Roman  Galatia  had  included  the 
cities  of  Lycaonia  and  Pisidia;  and  Paul  simply  would  be 
following  his  invariable  custom  when  he  called  the  churches 
of  these  cities  Galatian.  He  would  not  be  likely  to  make  an 
exception  to  his  usual  custom  in  any  case,  and  he  surely 
would  not  be  likely  to  rank  the  obscure  territory  of  Galatia 
proper  with  the  great  Roman  provinces  of  Asia,  Macedonia, 
and  Achaia. 

3.  Galatia  proper  is  a  very  wild  country.  Its  inhabitants 
were  rude  and  uncultured.  They  were  boorish  country 
people.  Their  territory  was  off  all  the  great  highways  of 
commerce  and  was  filled  with  almost  impassable  moun- 
tain ranges.  Now  Paul  worked  always  in  the  Greek-speak- 
ing cities.  He  did  not  like  the  country  at  any  time,  and  it 
is  extremely  improbable  that  he  would  undertake  a  journey 
into  this  monotonous  and  unpromising  region  with  its  rustic 
inhabitants  using  their  Celtic  dialects.  Paul  traveled  by 
the  great  Roman  roads  and  preferred  to  spend  his  time  in 
the  great  centers  of  population. 

4.  The  epistle  refers  to  Barnabas  again  and  again,1  as  if 
he  were  well  known  to  the  readers  of  it.  Now,  Barnabas 
accompanied  Paul  on  his  first  missionary  journey  through 
Antioch,  Lystra,  Iconium,  and  Derbe  and  was  well  known 
to  the  people  in  the  churches  there.  Silas  was  the  compan- 
ion of  Paul  in  the  second  missionary  journey  in  which  the 
Galatian  churches  were  founded  if  they  were  founded  in 

•Gal.  2.  1,  9,  13. 


274  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

North  Galatia;  and  he  is  not  mentioned  in  the  epistle  at  all. 
This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  epistle  was  written  to 
the  churches  of  South  Galatia. 

5.  The  epistle  indicates  that  its  recipients  were  in  com- 
munication with  Antioch  and  Jerusalem.  The  Judaizers 
would  be  more  likely  to  reach  the  cities  of  South  Galatia 
than  the  remoter  regions  of  North  Galatia. 

6.  Paul  gives  as  the  occasion  of  the  founding  of  these 
churches  some  illness  of  his  own.  Ramsay  thinks  that  it 
was  a  malarial  fever  which  drove  Paul  from  the  unhealthy 
seacoast  into  the  mountainous  interior.  This  would  seem 
more  probable  than  that  any  illness  could  have  sent  him 
from  populous  centers  into  the  barren  plains  and  remoter 
districts  of  North  Galatia.  If  Paul  simply  was  detained 
there  by  his  sickness  as  he  was  passing  through,  where 
could  he  have  been  going  beyond  these  wilds? 

7.  In  Acts  18.  23  we  read  that  Paul  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  missionary  journey  went  through  the  region  of  Galatia 
and  Phrygia,  in  order,  establishing  all  the  disciples.  If 
Galatia  here  means  North  Galatia  alone,  then  all  the  dis- 
ciples were  not  visited,  and  some  important  fields  which 
Paul  had  evangelized  were  passed  by. 

8.  In  Acts  20.  4  we  find  the  list  of  the  deputies  accom- 
panying Paul  when  he  sets  out  for  Jerusalem  with  the  col- 
lection taken  up  in  all  the  Gentile  churches  for  the  poor 
saints  among  the  Jews.  We  know  how  much  Paul  was 
interested  in  this  collection  and  how  he  was  anxious  that 
all  the  Gentiles  should  be  represented  in  it.  Looking 
through  the  list,  we  find  nobody  from  the  churches  of 
North  Galatia,  granting  that  there  were  any  such;  but 
Timothy  is  mentioned  and  Gaius  of  Derbe,  both  of  whom 
come  from  the  churches  of  South  Galatia.  These  two  men 
represented  the  Roman  province  of  Galatia ;  and  there  is 
no  representative  from  among  the  Celts. 

9.  On  the  supposition  that  the  Galatian  churches  were  in 
Galatia  proper  Paul  never  makes  any  reference  to  them  in 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GAL  ATI  AX  S        275 

any  of  his  further  writing.  They  not  only  are  not  men- 
tioned in  the  book  of  Acts,  but  they  fall  completely  out  of 
notice  in  all  the  later  Pauline  and  New  Testament  epistles. 
If  Paul's  favorite  disciple,  Timothy,  was  a  Galatian,  this  is 
not  true. 

10.  The  charge  of  inconsistency  on  the  part  of  Paul  in 
the  matter  of  circumcision  most  probably  was  founded  upon 
his  conduct  in  the  case  of  Timothy. 

11.  In  Gal.  4.  14  we  read,  "Ye  received  me  as  an  angel 
of  God."  We  turn  to  Acts  14.  n  and  we  find  the  Lycaon- 
ians  saying,  "The  gods  are  come  down  to  us  in  the  like- 
ness of  men."  May  not  the  one  passage  be  a  reference  to 
the  other?  There  is  a  possibility  that  these  considerations 
are  sufficient  to  settle  the  question  in  many  minds. 

However,  the  older  and  traditional  view  still  is  held  by 
the  majority  of  scholars,  among  whom  we  find  Mommsen, 
Wieseler,  Weiss,  Wendt,  Zockler,  Dobschiitz,  Lipsius, 
Riickert,  Schiirer,  Schmiedel,  Steinmann,  Sieffert,  Lietz- 
mann,  H.  J.  Holtzmann,  Hofmann,  Hilgenfeld,  Holsten, 
Haupt,  Blass,  Julicher,  Bousset,  Godet,  Howson,  Jowett, 
Lightfoot,  Davidson,  Chase,  Farrar,  Findlay,  Salmon,  Mof- 
fatt,  and  Gilbert.  These  men  say: 

1.  It  is  nothing  against  the  fact  that  the  Galatian  churches 
were  founded  in  Galatia  proper  that  the  book  of  Acts  says 
nothing  about  it.  We  know  that  the  book  of  Acts  says 
nothing  about  many  other  experiences  of  Paul.  It  says 
nothing  about  Paul's  journey  into  Arabia  before  he  began 
his  missionary  preaching,  but  Paul  vouches  for  it  in  this 
very  epistle.2  It  says  nothing  about  the  mission  work  in 
Syria  and  Cilicia  of  which  also  Paul  tells  us  in  this  epistle.3 
It  says  nothing  of  the  work  in  Dalmatia  and  Illyria.4  It  is 
absolutely  silent  about  all  the  troubles  in  the  Corinthian 
church  which  led  Paul  to  write  our  two  epistles  to  the  Cor- 


2  Gal.  1.  17. 

3  Gal.  1.  21. 

*  Rom.  15.  19;  2  Tim.  4.  10. 


276  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

inthians.  It  gives  us  no  word  concerning  the  founding  of 
the  church  at  Colossae  to  which  Paul  wrote  an  epistle  later. 
When  the  book  of  Acts  is  silent  about  so  many  things  in 
Paul's  life  its  silence  here  argues  nothing. 

2.  It  is  of  no  weight  against  this  theory  that  no  represen- 
tatives from  North  Galatia  are  mentioned  among  the  dele- 
gates gathered  about  Paul  at  Troas  when  he  was  on  his 
way  to  Jerusalem  with  the  moneys  collected  for  the  poor 
saints  there.  The  list  there  given  does  not  represent  all  of 
the  Pauline  churches.  No  one  is  mentioned  from  Corinth 
or  Philippi  or  Achaia.  At  any  rate,  the  Galatian  contribu- 
tion may  have  been  sent  directly  to  Jerusalem.  What  would 
be  the  use  of  sending  it  first  to  Macedonia  or  Troas,  and 
of  running  all  the  risks  involved  in  its  transportation  by  that 
roundabout  route? 

3.  It  is  not  quite  true  that  Paul  confined  himself  to  work 
in  the  great  cities.  How  about  Derbe  and  Lystra?  These 
were  small  and  unimportant  places  and  yet  Paul  visited 
and  evangelized  them.  He  may  have  made  the  cities  his 
headquarters,  but  he  always  had  the  region  round  about  in 
his  eye.  He  sent  out  his  assistants  and  his  converts  into 
the  whole  province  about  the  capital  city,  and  he  kept  him- 
self informed  as  to  their  work.  lie  doubtless  inspected  it 
whenever  it  was  possible.  He  always  was  pressing  on  into 
the  regions  beyond.  He  had  the  restless  temperament  of 
the  pioneer  and  the  explorer.  The  North  Galatian  territory 
would  have  attracted  him,  even  as  the  Bithynian  territory 
did  later.5  He  may  have  essayed  to  go  into  the  northern 
regions  from  South  Galatia  and  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  had 
not  hindered  him. 

4.  It  is  acknowledged  that  the  author  of  the  book  of  Acts 
uses  the  popular  rather  than  the  official  phraseology  in 
speaking  of  Galatia.  If  he  were  a  companion  of  the  apostle 
Paul,  as  seems  most  probable,  it  is  likely  that  his  custom 

6  Acts  16.  7. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        277 

and  Paul's  custom  would  be  the  same  in  this  matter.  Any- 
way, the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  those  who  declare  that 
Paul's  custom  is  different.  It  is  open  to  us  to  believe  that 
it  is  not.  It  is  clear  that  in  Acts  16.  5,  6  Galatia  is  distin- 
guished from  the  southern  provinces;  and,  if  we  had  nothing 
but  the  book  of  Acts  to  go  upon,  the  suggestion  of  the 
South  Galatian  theory  would  have  been  impossible. 

5.  In  Gal.  4.  12-15  Paul  says  that  the  churches  in  Galatia 
were  founded  because  he  was  detained  among  them  by 
sickness.  Now,  we  know  that  this  was  not  the  case  with  the 
founding  of  the  churches  in  South  Galatia.  The  book  of 
Acts  gives  us  to  understand  that  the  mission  of  Paul  and 
Barnabas  to  these  cities  was  the  direct  result  of  their  being 
sent  from  the  church  at  Antioch  to  preach  the  gospel 
to  the  Gentiles.  The  churches  in  Antioch  of  Pisidia,  and 
Lystra  and  Iconium  and  Derbe  were  founded  in  direct  and 
purposed  missionary  labor  and  not  in  consequence  of  any 
illness  at  all. 

6.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  Paul  appears  as  the  sole 
founder  of  the  churches  addressed;  and  if  he  were  writing 
to  the  churches  founded  in  the  first  missionary  journey  he 
surely  would  have  joined  the  name  of  Barnabas  with  his 
own,  for  Barnabas  was  responsible  just  as  much  as  Paul  for 
the  missionary  work  done  in  those  South  Galatian  cities. 
Findlay  suggests  with  much  force  that  Paul  "speaks  else- 
where of  those  who  'stretch  themselves  overmuch'  and 
'build  on  another's  foundation'  with  a  contempt,  some  meas- 
ure of  which  would  fall  on  himself,  if  he  really  ignored 
Barnabas's  paternal  rights  and  interest  in  the  churches  of 
the  first  missionary  tour,  and  elbowed  him  out  of  the 
partnership  as  he  must  have  done  on  the  South-Galatian 
hypothesis.  ...  It  was  a  joint  enterprise  upon  which  they 
were  engaged.  Barnabas  was  at  that  time  Paul's  colleague 
upon  an  equal  footing,  if  not,  in  public  estimate,  his  official 
superior,  as  he  was  his  senior  in  age  and,  in  a  sense,  his 
patron.     In  view  of  Paul's  known  character  and  delicate 


278  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

sentiments  toward  his  fellow  workers,  I  cannot  understand 
his  assumption  of  sole  jurisdiction  over  the  Galatians  and 
his  oblivion  of  Barnabas's  part  in  their  conversion,  if  they 
were  the  Galatians  of  the  southern  cities  where  Barnabas 
and  he  labored  as  fellow  missionaries.  Their  subsequent 
disagreement  would  have  made  the  apostle  all  the  more 
scrupulous  to  do  full  justice  to  his  old  comrade  in  arms."  6 
That  Barnabas  is  mentioned  does  not  argue  that  the  Gal- 
atians were  personally  acquainted  with  him.  Paul  mentions 
him  in  writing  to  the  Corinthians  and  to  the  Colossians, 
and  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that  the  people  in  Corinth 
or  in  Colossse  knew  Barnabas  except  by  hearsay,  and  we 
know  that  Barnabas  had  no  part  in  the  founding  of  those 
churches.  They  had  heard  of  Barnabas  as  of  all  the  other 
most  prominent  leaders  in  the  Christian  Church.  They 
would  understand  the  reference  to  him,  though  they  never 
had,  seen  him. 

7.  In  Gal.  4.  14  Paul  says  that  the  Galatians  received 
him  "as  an  angel  of  God,  even  as  Christ  Jesus."  Is  there 
anything  in  the  narrative  of  the  founding  of  the  churches  in 
the  cities  of  South  Galatia  which  would  correspond  to  this 
statement?  Surely  not,  when  Paul  was  cast  out  of  Antioch, 
and  shamefully  treated  in  Iconium,  and  stoned  and  left 
for  dead  at  Lystra.  Did  the  heathen  inhabitants  of  Lystra 
take  him  for  an  incarnation  of  Hermes  and  offer  him  idol- 
atrous worship?  That  very  fact  proved  that  they  had  no 
conception  at  that  time  of  the  nature  of  his  message  and 
that  they  knew  nothing  of  the  Christian  salvation;  and 
therefore  their  action  surely  was  far  removed  from  re- 
ceiving him  as  Christ  Jesus.  No,  the  hospitality  of  these 
simple  country  people  and  their  devotion  to  the  apostle  has 
no  counterpart  in  the  experiences  narrated  in  Acts  13-14. 

8.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  Paul  reports  the  deci- 
sions of  the  council  at  Jerusalem,  as  if  his  readers  would 


6  Expository  Times,  vii,  pp.  235,  236. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        279 

thus  hear  them  for  the  first  time.  This  would  not  be  true 
if  they  were  in  the  cities  of  South  Galatia,  for  Paul  had 
visited  them  after  the  Jerusalem  council  and  had  handed 
them  the  letter  sent  out  to  the  Gentiles  by  that  council. 
Therefore  the  Galatians  of  this  epistle  must  have  belonged 
to  a  different  circle  of  converts. 

9.  The  Galatians  to  whom  Paul  writes  are  being  urged 
into  circumcision  by  certain  Judaizers,  and  they  seem  to 
have  been  influenced  by  their  persuasions  and  arguments. 
This  would  not  have  been  so  likely  to  occur  in  South  Galatia 
where  they  knew  about  the  Jerusalem  council  and  could 
have  presented  to  these  proselytizers  the  official  decision  of 
the  matter  there  made. 

10.  In  Gal.  1.  12  Paul  tells  about  coming  into  the  regions 
of  Syria  and  Cilicia.  Now,  Paul  visited  the  cities  of  South 
Galatia  at  the  same  time  that  he  labored  in  these  other  dis- 
tricts. Surely,  then,  in  writing  to  these  people  he  would 
not  have  omitted  all  mention  of  his  work  among  them- 
selves. If  he  labored  in  Syria,  Cilicia,  and  Galatia,  he 
surely  would  have  mentioned  Galatia  when  writing  to  the 
Galatians. 

There  is  one  consolation  in  the  uncertainty  as  to  the 
destination  of  this  epistle,  and  that  is  that  its  interpreta- 
tion is  not  seriously  affected  by  our  decision  of  this  ques- 
tion. In  minor  details  the  exegesis  may  be  influenced  by 
one's  opinion  in  this  matter,  but  in  broad  outline  the  truths 
of  the  epistle  are  independent  of  any  local  habitation. 

II.  Who  Were  the  Galatians? 

Our  answer  to  this  question,  of  course,  will  depend  upon 
our  answer  to  the  former  question  as  to  the  location  of 
Galatia.  If  the  Galatians  were  the  inhabitants  of  Galatia 
proper,  then  predominantly  they  were  Gauls  with  a  sub- 
stratum of  the  ancient  Phrygian  population  and  an  inter- 
mingling of  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Jews.  Altogether,  we 
are  told  that  they  were  a  "mongrel  crew,"  a  mixed  race. 


280  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

The  Gauls  themselves  were  an  alien  people  from  the  far 
west.  They  came  from  beyond  the  Rhine  and  the  outlying 
islands  west  of  Europe.  The  colonists  at  Marseilles  called 
them  Celtse,  the  Greeks  called  them  Galatae,  and  the  Romans 
called  them  Galli.  They  had  the  same  Gallic  or  Celtic  blood 
with  the  Irish,  the  Welsh,  and  the  French  of  to-day. 

They  seem  to  have  been  a  restless  race  through  all  their 
history  and  they  began  their  migrations  toward  the  East  in 
the  fourth  century  before  Christ.  They  crossed  the  Alps 
into  Italy  and  sacked  the  city  of  Rome  in  B.  C.  390.  A 
century  later  they  crossed  the  Danube  and  invaded  Mace- 
donia and  Greece,  attacking  the  oracle  at  Delphi  in  B.  C. 
279.  Pressing  onward  through  Thrace,  they  entered  Asia 
Minor,  and  about  B.  C.  230  they  finally  settled  in  the  moun- 
tainous districts  south  of  the  Black  Sea  and  gave  their  name 
to  the  land  they  had  conquered,  Galatia,  the  home  of  the 
Gauls.  In  this  district  they  maintained  themselves  until 
they  were  conquered  by  the  Romans  in  B.  C.  189.  A  suc- 
cession of  their  own  princes  was  permitted  to  govern  them 
until,  about  B.  C.  25,  they  were  made  a  part  of  the  larger 
Roman  province  of  Galatia. 

Light  foot  and  others  have  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the 
Galatians  of  this  epistle  have  the  Celtic  characteristics: 
enthusiasm  (4.  14),  fickleness  (1.  6),  superstition  (3.  1; 
5.  20),  drunkenness  (5.  21),  vanity  (5.  26),  and  fondness 
for  strife  (5.  15).  They  are  a  passionate,  quarrelsome, 
impulsive,  mercurial  people.  Michelet  describes  the  modern 
French  as  "sensual,  prompt  to  learn,  prompt  to  despise,  and 
greedy  of  new  things."  This  characterization  applies  per- 
fectly to  the  Galatians  of  this  epistle.  It  is  interesting  to 
find  these  peoples  from  Western  Europe  settled  here  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  there  is  a  temptation  to  believe  that  the 
apostle  Paul  came  into  contact  with  them  and  that  the 
great  battle  for  religious  liberty  was  fought  out  in  their 
behalf.  Martin  Luther  comes  next  to  the  apostle  Paul  in 
his  work  for  religious  emancipation,  and  he  fought  his  battle 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS 


281 


against  the  Roman  hierarchy  upon  the  basis  furnished  him 
by  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  and  he  thought  that  the 
characteristics  of  the  Galatians  were  the  characteristics 
of  the  Germans  of  his  day. 

Those  who  believe  that  the  Galatians  addressed  were  the 
Christians  in  Antioch,  Iconium,  Lystra,  and  Derbe  insist 
that  too  much  has  been  made  of  these  Celtic  characteristics 
and  that  they  might  be  ascribed  just  as  readily  to  the  Phry- 
gians as  to  the  Gauls  and  that  indeed  they  are  so  common 
in  any  community  of  people  that  they  are  human  rather  than 
racial  qualities.  Changeableness,  quarrelsomeness,  vanity, 
drunkenness,  and  superstition  would  be  likely  to  appear  in 
South  Galatia  as  well  as  in  Galatia  proper.  We  may  grant 
this  contention,  and  leave  this  question  equally  unsettled 
with  the  former  one,  remembering  again  that  the  under- 
standing of  the  epistle  does  not  depend  upon  our  conclu- 
sion concerning  these  things. 

III.  Date  and  Place  of  Writing 

There  are  many  different  opinions  upon  these  points. 
Some  think  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  the  earliest 
of  the  Pauline  epistles  and  some  think  that  it  is  the  latest, 
and  it  has  been  put  at  almost  every  possible  place  between 
these  two  extreme  dates.  Some  say  that  the  epistle  was 
written  in  Ephesus.7  One  reason  for  this  opinion  is  found 
in  the  statement  in  Gal.  1.  6,  "I  marvel  that  ye  are  so  quickly 
removing  from  him  that  called  you  in  the  grace  of  Christ 
unto  a  different  gospel."  This  is  interpreted  to  mean,  "I 
marvel  that  you  have  become  apostate  in  so  short  a  time;" 
and  then  the  conclusion  is  easy  that  Paul  had  just  left  the 
Galatians  and  he  is  astonished  to  learn  by  the  first  mes- 
sengers who  follow  him  to  Ephesus  that  they  have  turned 
about  face  immediately  after  his  departure.  We  consider 
this  a  misinterpretation.     Paul  does  not  mean,  "I  am  sur- 

7  Credner,  Hofmann,    H.  J.  Holtzmann,  Lipsius,  Meyer,  Reuss, 
Sieffert,  Schmiedel,  Steinmann,  Wieseler,  Godet,  Alford,  Moffatt. 


282  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

prised  that  you  have  backslidden  so  soon  after  your  conver- 
sion," for  the  Galatians  had  been  evangelized,  as  we  think, 
some  rive  or  seven  years  before  this ;  but  he  expresses  sur- 
prise that  they  have  been  led  astray  so  suddenly,  and  that 
with  so  little  persuasion  they  have  been  induced  to  follow  the 
Judaizing  teachers.  It  is  the  suddenness  of  this  change  of 
faith  which  seems  so  marvelous  to  him.  It  is  not,  now  con- 
verted and  now  backsliders  with  them,  but  now  Pauline  in 
doctrine  and  now  perverted.  The  faeility  with  which  this 
change  has  been  made  is  inexplicable  to  Paul. 

The  subscription  to  this  epistle  in  the  Authorized  Version 
says,  "Written  to  the  Galatians  from  Rome."  This  decision 
as  to  the  place  of  writing  is  due  to  another  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  text  in  Gal.  4.  20  and  6.  17,  where  it  has  been 
supposed  that  Paul  was  making  reference  to  his  own  im- 
prisonment. There  is,  of  course,  no  such  reference  in  the 
language  here  used,  and  this  subscription  in  the  Authorized 
Version  is  a  gross  mistake.  We  think  that  First  Corinth- 
ians was  written  in  the  spring  of  A.  D.  57,  and  Second 
Corinthians  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year,  and  Romans  early 
in  the  year  58,  and  Galatians  between  Second  Corinthians 
and  Romans  in  the  winter  of  A.  D.  57-58.  If  this  date  is 
the  correct  one,  the  place  of  writing  is  thus  determined  to 
be  some  city  of  Macedonia,  possibly  the  same  city  in  which 
Second  Corinthians  was  written,  or  still  more  probably 
Corinth,  the  city  in  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  was 
written.8 

Our  reasons  for  these  conclusions  are  as  follows : 
1.  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  belongs  to  the  second 
group  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  Its  style  and  its  general 
character  plainly  put  it  into  the  period  to  which  they  belong. 
The  Pauline  epistles,  as  we  have  seen,  fall  into  four  groups, 
written  approximately  with  intervals  of  five  years  between 
them;  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  is  not  like  those  of 


8Bleck,  Dobschutz,  Conybearc  and  Howson,  Li^htfool,  Salmon. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        283 

the  first,  the  third,  or  the  fourth  groups,  but  it  is  like  those 
of  the  second  group.  These  epistles  have  certain  common 
characteristics  which  have  been  listed  as  (1 )  a  tension  of 
feeling,  (2)  a  profusion  of  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, (3)  a  frequent  use  of  the  interrogation,  (4)  an 
abruptness  of  expression,  and  (5)  certain  doctrinal  distinc- 
tions from  the  other  groups.  The  subjects  with  which  they 
are  chiefly  concerned  are  (a)  justification  by  faith,  (b)  the 
distinction  between  the  law  and  grace,  and  (c)  the  liberty 
of  the  gospel.  In  all  these  particulars  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  would  seem  to  be  the  typical  epistle  of  this  second 
group. 

2.  It  is  like  Second  Corinthians  in  several  particulars : 
(1)  The  two  epistles  have  the  same  tone.  In  both  we  find 
the  same  sensitiveness  and  earnestness  of  the  apostle  mani- 
fest throughout.  He  makes  the  same  frequent  reference  to 
his  infirmity ;  and,  indeed,  about  all  that  we  know  of  Paul's 
thorn  in  the  flesh  we  gather  from  these  two  epistles.  We 
find  the  same  readiness  to  make  concessions  to  the  older 
apostles,  and  the  same  protest  against  their  exclusive  right 
to  the  apostolate.  We  find  the  same  denunciation  of  false 
teachers  in  both  the  epistles,  and  the  same  strong  assertion 
of  his  own  apostleship,  together  with  strong  expression  of 
his  humility.  (2)  We  find  some  sentences  practically  the 
same  in  both  epistles.  Compare  Gal.  3.  13  with  2  Cor.  5.  21, 
and  Gal.  6.  7  with  2  Cor.  9.  6.  (3)  We  have  the  same 
phrases  in  both,  such  as  ''another  gospel,"  "a  new  creature," 
and  "we  persuade  men."  Compare  Gal.  1.  6  with  2  Cor. 
n.  4,  and  Gal.  6.  15  with  2  Cor.  5.  17. 

3.  It  is  most  like  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans:  (1)  It  has 
the  same  thesis  or  text,"  "By  the  works  of  the  law  no  flesh 
is  justified"  (Gal.  2.  16  and  Rom.  3.  20).  (2)  It  has  the 
same  arguments:  (a)  We  find  the  same  Old  Testament 
passage  quoted  in  both  and  the  same  conclusions  drawn 
from  it  (Gal.  3.  6  and  Rom.  4.  3).  (b)  Both  argue  that  the 
Mosaic  law  was  divinely  sanctioned  and  yet  it  is  not  binding 


284  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

upon  Christians  (Gal.  3.  19  and  Rom.  6).  (3)  There  are 
strange  verbal  agreements  in  the  two  epistles,  which  would 
indicate  that  there  could  have  been  no  long  interval  between 
the  times  of  their  composition.  Note  again  Gal.  2.  16  and 
Rom.  3.  20.  Both  these  passages  quote  from  Psa.  143.  2, 
and  they  both  change  the  quotation  from  the  original  in 
the  same  way,  adding  "the  works  of  the  law"  and  altering 
"no  living  man"  into  "no  flesh."  Compare  the  passages 
Gal.  5.  17  and  Rom.  7.  15-23,  and  see  how  the  conception  in 
Galatians  simply  is  expanded  and  illustrated  in  the  later 
epistle.  (4)  There  are  many  parallel  passages  in  the  two 
epistles.  Compare  Gal.  4.  5-7  with  Rom.  8.  14-17,  and  Gal. 
2.  20  with  Rom.  6.  6-8,  and  Gal.  5.  14  with  Rom.  13.  9,  and 
Gal.  2.  7  with  Rom.  15.  15  and  n.  13.  At  least  twenty  of 
these  parallels  have  been  noted  by  the  commentators.  We 
conclude,  therefore,  with  Lightfoot,  that  Galatians  is  "the 
rough  model  of  which  Romans  is  the  finished  statue."  9 

IV.  The  Occasion  of  the  Epistle 

The  writing  of  this  epistle  was  occasioned  through  an 
invasion  of  the  Galatian  territory  by  certain  Judaizing  emis- 
saries who  attacked  Paul's  character  and  Paul's  gospel 
and  who  endeavored  to  make  his  Gentile  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity become  thoroughgoing  Jews.  They  said  about  the 
same  things  which  had  been  said  at  Corinth,  and  it  may  be 
that  there  was  a  concerted  effort  among  the  Judaizers  in 
the  Christian  Church  at  this  time  to  undermine  the  influence 
of  the  apostle  Paul  and  to  restore  the  Jewish  supremacy  in 
the  church  which  had  characterized  the  early  days  and 
years  of  its  history,  but  which  was  now  threatened  with 
overthrow  by  the  ever-increasing  numbers  of  the  Pauline 
converts  in  the  Gentile  fields.  Their  appearance  and  their 
aggressive  campaign  seem  to  have  been  at  about  the  same 
period  in  Corinth  and  in  Galatia.  They  may  have  repre- 
sented a  simultaneous  effort  throughout  the  Pauline  fields 

•  Lightfoot,  Galatians,  p.  49 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIAXS        285 

which  seriously  menaced  the  continuance  of  his  most  cher- 
ished principles  and  the  maintenance  of  his  most  promising 
church  communities. 

It  must  have  been  one  of  the  darkest  hours  in  Paul's 
life.  An  illness  had  befallen  him  which  seemed  more  than 
he  could  bear,  and  under  its  weight  he  had  gone  down  to 
the  very  edge  of  the  grave.  No  wonder  that  he  talks  as 
much  as  he  does  about  his  physical  weakness  at  this  time. 
He  was  just  convalescing  from  such  a  serious  attack  that 
he  had  despaired  of  his  life,  and  his  recovery  had  seemed 
like  a  reprieve  granted  to  one  under  sentence  of  death,  or 
like  the  resurrection  of  one  who  already  had  died.10  Prob- 
ably just  before  this  illness  Paul  had  been  compelled  to 
flee  from  Ephesus,  where  he  had  made  his  longest  stay 
and  where  he  had  hoped  that  he  could  be  protected  from 
mob  violence  or  any  other  assault.  That  hope  had  proved 
vain,  and  he  again  was  a  wanderer  over  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Neither  he  himself  nor  his  churches  seemed  to  have 
any  prospect  of  freedom  from  persecution  or  any  guarantee 
of  continued  life.  At  the  same  time  he  knew  that  the  Cor- 
inthian church  was  being  prejudiced  against  him  and  an 
earnest  effort  was  being  made  to  alienate  it  from  its  founder 
and  first  teacher.  Now  comes  the  news  that  the  same  work 
is  going  on  in  Galatia,  and  that  it  has  been  even  more  suc- 
cessful there  than  in  Corinth.  It  began  to  look  as  if  all 
his  work  was  disintegrating  east  and  west.  He  could  not 
be  everywhere  at  once,  but  his  enemies  could. 

It  is  just  in  such  hours  when  everything  seems  lost  that 
the  greatest  generals  have  refused  to  give  up  hope  and  have 
rallied  the  forlorn  cause  and  have  snatched  victory  out  of 
seeming  defeat.  Paul  never  felt  more  depressed  in  his  life. 
He  never  had  so  much  reason  for  discouragement.  Yet  his 
indomitable  spirit  rises  to  meet  the  emergency.  He  cannot 
be  everywhere  at  once.    He  cannot  go  to  Galatia  at  this  time, 

10  2  Cor.  1.  8-10. 


286  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

but  he  can  write.  What  can  be  done  by  letter  he  will  do. 
He  will  defend  his  apostolate.  He  will  set  forth  his  gospel 
anew,  and  he  will  give  his  reasons  for  it.  He  will  plead 
and  exhort  and  it  may  be  that  he  will  win  the  Galatians 
again  to  their  lost  religious  liberty.  He  wrote  to  the  Cor- 
inthians "out  of  much  affliction  and  anguish  of  heart  and 
with  many  tears,"  11  and  he  must  have  written  this  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  in  the  same  stress  of  emotion  and  out  of  the 
same  distress  of  soul.  Was  there  ever  a  better  example  of 
the  triumph  of  a  human  will  over  adverse  circumstance? 
Was  there  ever  a  better  example  of 

A  faith  that  shines  more  bright  and  clear 

When  tempests  rage  without; 
That  when  in  danger  knows  no  fear, 

In  darkness  feels  no  doubt? 

Paul  is  "pressed  on  every  side,  yet  not  straitened ;  per- 
plexed, yet  not  unto  despair;  .  .  .  smitten  down,  yet  not 
destroyed."  12  He  is  physically  weak  and  spiritually  ha- 
rassed ;  but  he  answers  every  challenge  of  his  foes,  beats 
them  back  at  every  point  of  attack,  and  then  triumphantly 
sweeps  the  field  with  a  fresh  and  undaunted  and  irresist- 
ible battalion  of  eternal  principles  which  never  have  been 
gainsaid  to  this  day. 

We  gather  from  this  epistle  that  these  enemies  in  Galatia 
had  been  saying  that  Paul's  authority  was  secondary  and 
derived.  It  was  doubtful  whether  he  ought  to  be  called  an 
apostle  at  all,  and  he  surely  could  not  claim  any  equality 
with  the  apostolic  Twelve  who  had  founded  the  church 
at  Jerusalem.  Where  was  Paul  when  Jesus  was  teaching 
in  Palestine?  Where  was  Paul  when  Jesus  was  crucified 
in  Jerusalem  ?  Where  was  Paul  when  the  Spirit  was  poured 
out  upon  the  church  at  Pentecost?  The  commission  of  the 
twelve  was  unquestioned  and  rested  upon  universal  testi- 

11  2  Cor.  2.  4. 

12  2  Cor.  4.  8,  9. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        287 

mony  as  to  the  facts.  The  commission  of  Paul  seemed  to 
have  come  through  a  vision  and  to  rest  upon  his  own  testi- 
mony alone.  The  Master  had  warned  them  that  false 
prophets  and  false  apostles  would  arise  in  the  latter  days. 
Who  knew  whether  this  Paul  were  not  one  of  them?  Surely 
it  was  only  proper  to  ask  for  his  authorization.  What 
was  it? 

The  twelve  had  been  made  apostles  by  the  Lord  himself, 
but  Paul  was  an  apostle  "through  men."  13  He  had  been 
commissioned,  not  by  the  Lord  and  not  by  the  twelve 
apostles,  and  not  even  by  the  church  at  Jerusalem,  but 
by  the  church  at  Antioch  in  Syria.  He  was  a  missionary 
sent  out  by  that  church  and  the  only  authority  behind 
him  was  the  authority  of  that  church.  All  he  knew 
had  been  "taught"  him.14  He  had  been  dependent  upon 
others  from  the  very  first.  It  was  Ananias  who  instructed 
him  in  the  first  principles  of  the  gospel  there  at  Damascus, 
where  he  was  converted.  He  received  his  gospel  "from  a 
man"  and  "through  a  man."  15  Ananias  had  laid  hands 
upon  him  and  sent  him  out  to  be  a  preacher.16  The 
prophets  and  teachers  at  Antioch  had  laid  hands  upon  him 
and  sent  him  out  to  be  a  missionary.17  His  authorization 
was  wholly  a  human  one,  and  his  gospel  was  a  human 
gospel. 

It  was  not  strange,  therefore,  that  it  should  turn  out 
to  be  a  false  gospel  in  more  respects  than  one.  Wherever 
his  preaching  differed  with  that  of  the  older  apostles  they 
might  be  sure  that  Paul  had  gone  wrong.  Now,  Jesus  and 
all  his  apostles  had  taught  the  strict  observance  of  the  Jew- 
ish law  and  of  circumcision  and  of  the  sacred  months  and 
days.  Anyone  who  said  that  Christians  might  be  freed  from 
all  such  obligations  taught  a  new  gospel  and  a  different 
gospel  from  that  of  Jesus  and  the  twelve.18  They  themselves 

13  Gal.  1.  1.  16  Acts  9.  17. 

14  Gal.  1.  12.  "Acts  13.  3. 
«Gal.  1.  I,  12.  18Gal.  1.  6. 


288  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

preached  "another  gospel,"19  and  it  alone  could  insure  mem- 
bership in  the  kingdom  and  participation  in  all  the  promises. 
Paul  was  cutting  them  oft"  from  all  the  past  and  from  all 
the  privileges  which  belonged  to  the  children  of  Abraham. 
He  was  not  consistent  at  this  point.  He  said  he  was  all 
things  to  all  men,  but  that  meant  simply  that  he  was  "seek- 
ing the  favor  of  men"  and  "striving  to  please  men."  20  He 
was  willing  to  make  any  sacrifice  to  keep  the  good  will  of 
those  to  whom  he  preached.  He  would  "preach  circum- 
cision" 21  when  occasion  demanded  and  uncircumcision 
when  he  thought  that  he  would  get  into  no  trouble  by  doing 
it.  He  would  not  have  Titus  circumcised,  but  he  had  cir- 
cumcised Timothy.  Had  he  not  suggested  the  observance 
of  certain  regulations  which  would  enable  Jews  and  Gentiles 
to  live  together  in  harmony?  Was  not  every  one  of  these 
a  concession  that  the  Jews  were  right  in  these  matters  and 
that  the  Gentiles  must  acknowledge  their  position  as  the 
only  correct  one  in  the  premises? 

Paul  was  a  timeserver,  gaining  the  Gentiles  by  a  false 
doctrine  of  liberty  and  then  truckling  to  the  Jews  in  certain 
concessions.  He  was  so  anxious  to  make  converts  that  he 
was  willing  to  trim  the  gospel  to  suit  the  individual  taste. 
He  would  mutilate  the  message  rather  than  alienate  his 
hearers.  The  proclamation  of  the  unabridged  gospel  might 
not  be  so  palatable ;  and  he  gave  them  only  what  he  thought 
they  would  be  willing  to  bear.  Moreover,  this  false  gospel 
of  his  was  fatal  in  its  fruits  in  the  individual  life.  Had 
not  many  of  Paul's  converts  construed  their  liberty  into 
license?  At  the  heart  of  it  there  was  unrestrained  libertin- 
ism. These  people  who  adopted  Paul's  doctrine  walked 
after  the  flesh  and  fulfilled  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  all  the 
works  of  the  flesh  were  manifest  in  their  lives. 

Paul  writes  in  answer  to  these  things :  i .  I  am  an  apostle, 

19  Gal.  I.  7. 

20  Gal.  1.  10. 
"Gal.  5.  II. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIAXS       289 

of  equal  authority  with  any  other  (chapters  1,  2).  2.  The 
gospel  has  superseded  the  law;  for  the  law  could  save  no 
man,  and  the  gospel  saves  (chapters  3,  4).  3.  The  Chris- 
tian life  is  a  divine  life,  the  life  of  Christ  in  man,  and  that 
means  salvation  from  sin  (chapters.  5,  6). 

V.  General  Characteristics  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Its  Single  Aim.  There  are  no  digressions  here. 
There  is  no  multiplication  of  issues.  It  is  not  like  First 
Corinthians  or  Second  Corinthians  in  this  regard.  First 
Corinthians  took  up  subject  after  subject  for  discussion; 
Galatians  has  a  single  theme.  Second  Corinthians  has  no 
orderly  progression  of  thought  and  the  one  clear  and  dis- 
tinct discussion  in  it  is  that  of  its  one  digression  concerning 
the  collection.  Galatians  marches  straight  ahead  like  a 
battalion  on  parade;  but  the  field  is  left  covered  with  the 
slain  among  his  foes.  There  is  a  unity  of  purpose  and  com- 
pleteness of  execution  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  which 
is  not  equaled  in  the  same  space  in  any  other  of  the  Pauline 
epistles.    The  epistle  is  little  but  mighty,  like  Paul  himself. 

2.  Its  Unmitigated  Severity.  Usually,  in  the  Pauline 
epistles  immediately  after  the  address  we  come  upon  a 
thanksgiving.  There  is  no  thanksgiving  here.  There  is  an 
anathema  instead:  "If  any  man  preacheth  unto  you  any 
gospel  other  than  that  which  ye  received,  let  him  be  an- 
athema. Though  an  angel  from  heaven  should  preach  unto 
you  any  gospel  other  than  that  which  we  preached  unto 
you,  let  him  be  anathema."  22  Paul  has  no  praise  here  at 
the  outset  for  the  Galatians.  He  begins,  "I  marvel  that  ye 
are  so  quickly  removing  unto  a  different  gospel."  23  Then 
he  proceeds  to  castigate  them  for  a  long  array  of  faults. 
Ramsay  makes  a  list  of  fifteen  of  these,  which  he  arranges 
in  three  groups.  First,  five  which  were  fostered  under 
their  heathen   religion :    fornication,   impurity,   wantonness, 

22  Gal.  1.  8,  9. 

23  Gal.  1.6. 


290  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

idolatry,  and  sorcery  or  magic.  Second,  eight  which  were 
connected  with  the  municipal  life  in  the  cities  of  Asia 
Minor:  enmities,  strife,  rivalry,  outbursts  of  wrath,  cabal- 
lings,  factions,  parties,  jealousies.  Third,  two  characteristic 
of  the  society  and  manners  of  the  Graeco- Asiatic  cities: 
drinkings  and  revelings.24  Paul  has  no  mercy  upon  any- 
thing of  this  sort.  His  severity  of  tone  is  sustained 
throughout.  "O  foolish  Galatians,  who  did  bewitch 
you?"25  "I  am  afraid  of  you,  lest  by  any  means  I  have 
bestowed  labor  upon  you  in  vain."  26  "As  many  as  shall 
walk  by  this  rule,  peace  be  upon  them,  and  mercy.  .  .  . 
Henceforth  let  no  man  trouble  me."  27  The  epistle  is  one 
"outburst  of  indignant  remonstrance."  It  is  not  a  sermon, 
it  is  not  a  treatise,  says  Gloel,  it  is  a  sword-cut,  delivered 
in  the  hour  of  greatest  danger  by  a  combatant  who  is 
assaulted  by  determined  foes.28 

3.  Its  Vehemence  of  Language.  Paul  was  boiling  over 
with  indignation  when  he  wrote  this  epistle.  He  was  hot 
with  righteous  anger.  His  words  pour  forth  "in  one  con- 
tinuous rush,  a  veritable  torrent — of  genuine  and  inimitable 
Paulinism,  like  a  mountain  stream  in  full  flow."  Sabatier 
says  of  it,  "Unfinished  phrases,  daring  omissions,  paren- 
theses which  leave  us  out  of  sight  and  out  of  breath,  rab- 
binical subtleties,  audacious  paradoxes,  vehement  apos- 
trophes pour  on  like  surging  billows."  The  epistle  is  an 
overwhelming  tidal  wave.  It  sweeps  everything  before  it 
in  the  most  ruthless  fashion.  Weiss  says  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  "passionate  irritation"  in  these  words.29  Paul  is 
ready  to  summon  up  an  imaginary  angel  in  order  to  an- 
athematize him.30  He  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  he 
wishes  these  people  who  are  making  such  a  fuss  about  cir- 


24  Ramsay,  Historical  Commentary  on  The  Epistle  to  the  Gala- 
tians, xlix. 

25  Gal.  3.  1.  26Gal.  4.  11. 

27  Gal.  6.  16,  17.  28  Hastings's  Bible  Dictionary,  ii,  p.  93. 

w  Weiss,  Introduction,  I,  p.  239.  30Gal.  1.  8. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        291 

cumcision  would  go  a  step  farther  and  cut  off  not  the  fore- 
skin alone  but  the  whole  offending  member.31  It  is  not 
delicate  language.  Paul  is  in  no  mood  for  choosing  his 
terms  as  he  indites  this  epistle.  It  is  Paul's  De  Corona. 
Like  the  great  oration  of  Demosthenes,  it  is  a  personal 
vindication  as  well  as  the  presentation  of  a  great  cause. 
It  has  been  said  that  "in  vehemence,  effectiveness,  and 
depth  of  conviction  this  epistle  is  paralleled  only  by  Luther's 
De  Captivitate  Babylonica  in  which  he  realized  his  saying 
that  his  battle  with  the  papacy  required  a  tongue  of  which 
every  word  is  a  thunderbolt."  32 

4.  Its  Sharp  Contrasts.  Paul  and  the  primitive  church, 
Paul  and  Peter,  the  law  and  the  gospel,  liberty  and  bondage, 
circumcision  and  the  cross,  flesh  and  Spirit,  faith  and  good 
works,  Christ  and  the  world,  blessing  and  cursing,  death 
and  life — these  are  the  contrasts  which  dominate  the  whole 
discussion  of  this  epistle. 

VI.  General  Outline  of  the  Epistle 

There  are  six  chapters  in  the  epistle  in  our  versions,  and 
they  may  be  divided  into  three  equal  portions  of  two  chap- 
ters each :  two  personal  chapters,  two  doctrinal  chapters, 
and  two  practical  chapters.  Of  course  this  is  only  a  rough 
general  division,  for  there  are  personal  references  in  nearly 
all  the  chapters,  and  doctrinal  statements  in  all  and  practical 
suggestions  in  all.  We  follow  the  paragraph  division  in  the 
American  Revised  Version. 

I.  Personal — Chapters  I,  2. 

1.  Salutation,  1.  1-5. 

2.  Surprise  and  anathema,  1.  6-10. 

3.  Paul's  gospel  is  from  God,  1.  11-17. 

4.  Visit  to  Cephas  and  ministry  in  Syria  and  Cilicia,  1.  18-24. 

5.  Paul's  gospel  was  recognized  and  ratified  by  Cephas,  James, 

and  John,  2.  1-10. 

6.  It  maintained  itself  against  Cephas  at  Antioch,  2.  11-21. 


a1  Gal.  5.  12. 

32  Farrar,  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  250. 


292  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

II.   Doctrinal — Chapters  3,  4. 

1.  The  faith  of  Abraham,  3.  1-14. 

2.  Faith  and  the  law,  3.  15-22. 

3.  The  Christian's  relation  to  the  law  and  to  Abraham,  3. 

23-29. 

4.  Bondservants  and  sons,  4.  1-7. 

5.  Backsliding  of  the  Galatians,  4.  8-1 1. 

6.  A  personal  appeal,  contrasting  their  past  and  their  present, 

4.  12-20. 

7.  Allegory  of  the  handmaid  and  the  freewoman,  4.  21-31. 

III.   Practical — Chapters  5,  6. 

1.  Christ  sets  free,  5.  1. 

2.  Freedom  and  circumcision,  5.  2-12. 

3.  Freedom  and  love,  5.  13-15. 

4.  The  Spirit  and  the  flesh,  5.  16-24. 

5.  Walking  by  the  Spirit,  5.  25. 

6.  Burden-bearing,  6.  1-5. 

7.  Sowing  and  reaping,  6.  6-10. 

8.  Personal    subscription;    Paul    contrasts    his    motives    with 

those  of  his  foes,  6.  11-16. 

9.  The  marks  of  Jesus,  6.  17. 
10.  Benediction,  6.  18. 

The  general  subject  of  the  first  section  is,  "The  Vindica- 
tion of  Paul's  Gospel  and  Apostleship."  The  general  sub- 
ject of  the  second  section  is  "Justification  by  Faith,  or  The 
Contrast  between  Law  and  Grace."  The  general  subject 
of  the  third  section  is  "Spiritual  Liberty:  Its  Use  and 
Abuse." 

VII.  Summaries  of  the  Three  Sections 

1.  Summary  of  the  First  Section.  "I  am  an  apostle,  not 
from  men,  neither  through  man.  I  was  appointed  to  the 
apostolate  by  the  direct  call  of  God.  I  did  not  confer  with 
flesh  and  blood,  but  went  away  into  Arabia.  Then  for  years 
I  labored  in  Syria  and  Cilicia ;  and  was  not  known  to  any 
of  the  apostles,  except  Peter  and  James,  with  whom  I  visited 
at  one  time  for  fifteen  days.  I  was  an  apostle  before  I 
ever  saw  the  apostles,  and  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  my 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        293 

appointment  to  the  apostolate.  Then  after  fourteen  years 
I  went  up  to  Jerusalem  and  laid  before  those  who  were  of 
repute  the  gospel  which  I  preach,  and  they  recognized  it  as 
valid  and  me  as  their  equal  in  the  work  of  propagating  it. 
Later  I  publicly  rebuked  Peter  at  Antioch  as  his  equal  in 
authority  and  his  superior  in  fidelity  to  the  truth. 

"Do  my  opponents  say  that  I  have  been  taught  my  gospel 
and  that  I  have  received  it  from  man?  From  what  men 
would  I  receive  it?  From  the  apostles?  /  zvas  an  apostle 
before  I  ever  saw  an  apostle;  I  zvas  recognized  as  an 
equal  by  the  apostles  the  first  time  they  ever  met  me  or 
heard  what  gospel  I  preached;  and  I  have  rebuked  the  chief 
of  the  apostles  and  convicted  him  of  dissimulation  and 
betrayal  of  the  truth.  They  are  the  receivers,  not  I.  My 
gospel  did  not  come  from  them ;  it  came  straight  down  from 
heaven.  I  have  tested  it  in  years  of  service,  and  I  know 
it  is  true;  and  now  if  any  man  or  if  an  angel  from  heaven 
should  preach  any  other  gospel  to  you,  let  him  be  anathema. 
My  gospel  is  the  gospel  of  God.  /  have  preached  it  with- 
out asking  the  permission  of  the  apostles,  and  I  have 
preached  it  with  the  official  sanction  of  the  apostles,  and  I 
have  preached  it  in  defiance  of  the  apostles.  I  am  the 
apostle  of  God  and  my  gospel  is  the  gospel  of  God.  I 
marvel  that  ye  are  so  quickly  removing  from  it  and  from 
me." 

2.  Summary  of  the  Second  Section.  "Has  anybody 
bewitched  you  that  you  think  that  you  can  become  the  chil- 
dren of  Abraham  by  being  circumcised  and  by  observing  the 
law  of  Moses?  There  are  two  kinds  of  children  to  Abra- 
ham— the  Ishmaelites  and  the  Israelites.  To  which  would 
you  prefer  to  belong?  The  true  Israel  of  God  are  the  chil- 
dren of  Abraham  by  faith.  Now,  Abraham  believed  God 
and  it  was  counted  to  him  for  righteousness.  Abraham 
was  saved  by  faith  and  not  by  circumcision.  He  was  saved 
by  faith  long  before  he  was  circumcised.  In  Abraham  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  were  to  be  saved;  and  they  were 


294  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

to  be  saved  just  as  Abraham  himself  was  saved — by  faith 
and  not  by  circumcision.  Is  anybody  saved  by  fulfilling  the 
whole  law?  No,  everybody  is  under  a  curse  who  tries  it; 
for  he  fails  in  his  attempt  and  the  curse  of  the  broken  law 
is  upon  him.  Christ  bore  that  penalty  for  us,  that  through 
faith  in  him  we  might  now  be  saved.  Was  the  covenant 
made  with  Abraham  nullified  by  the  giving  of  the  law  which 
came  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  afterward?  No,  the 
promise  was  never  disannulled  by  the  law.  It  was  fulfilled 
and  established  in  Christ.  The  law  was  merely  a  paren- 
thesis in  the  course  of  that  fulfillment.  It  was  a  jailer,  a 
pedagogue,  a  guardian  and  steward,  restraining  and  train- 
ing the  heir  until  he  was  capable  of  taking  his  place  in  the 
household  as  the  recognized  son.  If  you  go  back  to  the 
observance  of  days  and  months  and  seasons  and  years,  you 
go  back  into  bondage;  you  become  sons  of  the  handmaid 
rather  than  of  the  freewoman,  Ishmaelites  rather  than 
Israelites,  the  children  of  Abraham  through  Hagar  rather 
than  through  Sarah  and  the  promise." 

3.  Summary  of  the  Third  Section.  "For  freedom  did 
Christ  set  us  free;"  that  is  the  keynote  of  the  third  section 
of  the  epistle.  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  has  been  called 
"The  Epistle  of  Freedom."  Godet  has  named  the  three 
sections  of  the  epistle  from  this  point  of  view.  (1)  The 
Apostle  of  Liberty.  In  the  first  two  chapters  Paul  says:  "I 
am  the  free  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  am  independent  of 
the  authorities  at  Jerusalem.  I  am  just  as  good  an  authority 
as  they  are."  (2)  The  Doctrine  of  Liberty.  In  the  third 
and  fourth  chapters  Paul  says,  "You  are  in  bondage  if  you 
are  under  the  law ;  but  you  are  free  from  the  law  if  you 
are  saved  by  faith."  (3)  The  Life  of  Liberty.  In  the  two 
closing  chapters  of  the  epistle  Paul  sets  forth  the  ideals  and 
the  requirements  of  the  life  free  from  the  law  and  enjoy- 
ing the  liberty  of  Christ.  The  whole  epistle,  then,  can  be 
summed  up  in  one  sentence:  It  is  the  Emancipation  Pro- 
clamation of  all  the  slaves  of  legality,  the  Declaration  of 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        295 

Independence  issued  in  the  name  of  believing  humanity  in 
defiance  of  the  laiv.  Like  Patrick  Henry's  "Give  me  liberty 
or  give  me  death,"  this  epistle  sounds  the  keynote  of  a  new 
era  of  freedom  for  the  human  race. 

The  thought  of  liberty  is  introduced  again  and  again. 
At  least  eleven  times  in  the  epistle  the  subject  is  suggested.33 
"For  freedom  did  Christ  set  us  free:  stand  fast,  therefore, 
and  be  not  entangled  again  in  a  yoke  of  bondage.  .  .  . 
For  ye,  brethren,  were  called  for  freedom;  only  use  not 
your  freedom  for  an  occasion  to  the  flesh."  The  freedom 
of  this  epistle  is  not  license  to  do  as  one  pleases,  but  it  is 
freedom  from  all  the  bondage  of  legality.  It  is  freedom 
from  the  law  of  rites  and  ordinances,  under  the  higher 
law  of  faith  and  grace  and  love.  There  is  the  paradox  in 
5.  13,  "Ye  were  called  for  freedom;  but  through  love  be 
slaves  one  to  another,"  34  which  reminds  us  of  that  other 
paradox  in  1  Cor.  7.  22,  "He  that  was  called  in  the  Lord 
being  a  bondservant,  is  the  Lord's  freedman :  likewise  he 
that  was  called  being  free,  is  Christ's  bondservant."  "Chris- 
tians are  freed  from  the  trammels  of  outward  law,  not  that 
they  may  please  themselves,  but  that  they  may  become 
slaves  to  the  law  of  mutual  love.  The  true  ideal  of  the 
Christian  is  not  freedom,  but  unfettered  service  to  the  love 
of  God  and  man,  which  annihilates  self,  and  subordinates 
all  selfish  desires  to  perfect  love."  35 

The  Christian  is  freed  from  the  service  of  a  law  of 
external  commandments  only  that  he  may  serve  the  law  of 
an  inner  life.  He  is  above  law  only  that  he  may  be  under 
law  at  the  same  time.  He  is  set  free  from  all  bondage  to 
a  lower  law  only  that  he  may  become  obedient  to  the  higher 
law.  He  is  no  longer  ruled  from  without;  but  he  is  still 
ruled   from  within.     The  law  on  the  tables  of  stone  no 


33  Gal.  2.  24;  3.  28;  4.  22,  23,  26,  30,  31;  5.  1-13. 

34  'T/jelc  yap  en'  ekevbep'ia  £K?rjf)>/Te  .   .  .  a?Ad  Aid.  rrjq  ayant/g  6ov7~.eve.Te 
aWijT.nig. 

35  Expositor's  Greek  Testament,  iii,  p.  186. 


296  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

longer  menaces  him,  because  he  is  subject  to  the  law  written 
on  the  tablets  of  his  heart.  The  freedom  of  the  Christian 
is  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit.  The  liberty  of  the  Christian 
is  liberty  in  Christ.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  name  of  Christ 
occurs  in  this  epistle  forty-three  times ;  and  that  in  thirty- 
nine  of  these  occurrences  we  have  the  personal  appella- 
tion rather  than  the  title.    It  is  not  "the  Christ"  but  "Christ." 

VIII.  Effect  of  the  Epistle  upon  the  Galatians 

The  immediate  effect  is  unknown.  We  have  no  record 
of  any  further  trouble  among  them  during  the  lifetime  of 
the  apostle  Paul.  It  may  be  supposed,  therefore,  that  the 
Judaizers  were  defeated  and  withdrew  from  the  field.  In 
the  later  Pauline  epistles  there  are  only  faint  and  linger- 
ing traces  of  the  conflict  which  bulks  so  large  in  the  epistles 
of  this  group.  It  would  seem  that  both  in  Galatia  and  in 
Corinth  Paul  was  the  acknowledged  victor  in  this  Judaistic 
controversy,  and  that  he  had  comparatively  little  trouble 
from  this  source  in  his  after  life.  In  the  next  century 
Galatia  became  a  hotbed  of  heresy.  It  was  one  of  the 
centers  of  the  Montanistic  movement.  The  Ophites  and 
the  Manichaeans  also  appeared  there  in  considerable  num- 
bers. Two  famous  heretical  bishops  lived  in  Galatia  in  the 
fourth  century — Marcellus  the  Sabellian  and  Basilius  the 
Arian.  Gregory  Nazianzen  says  that  Galatia  abounded  in 
many  impious  denominations  in  his  day.  Hausrath  thinks 
that  "the  victory  of  a  ritualistic  religion,  first  in  the  Jewish 
form,  then  in  the  Byzantine,  and  finally  in  that  of  Islam, 
was  from  the  outset  only  a  matter  of  time  among  these 
tribes  of  Asia  Minor.  For  them,  a  spiritual  religion  could 
only  be  a  transient  dream.  The  languid  climate,  the  pres- 
sure of  their  own  sensual  nature,  and  the  preponderant 
power  of  the  imagination  among  Orientals,  could  not  soon 
fail  to  corrupt  every  spiritual  religion."  36  This  opinion  is 
doubtless  influenced  by  the  known   facts  of  historv.      We 


36  Time  of  the  Apostles,  iii,  p.  199. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  GALATIANS        297 

trust  that  there  was  power  enough  in  the  Pauline  type  of 
Christianity  to  have  effected  a  permanent  change  in  this 
people.  We  hope  to  see  it  tried  again,  with  more  lasting 
success. 

XI.  Some  Estimates  of  this  Epistle 
1.  Luther  found  in  it  the  inspiration  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  He  said  of  it:  "The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
is  my  epistle.  I  have  betrothed  myself  to  it.  It  is  my 
wife."  2.  McClymont:  "It  has  done  more  than  any  other 
book  of  the  New  Testament  for  the  emancipation  of  Chris- 
tians, not  only  from  the  yoke  of  Judaism,  but  from  every 
other  form  of  externalism  that  has  ever  threatened  the  free- 
dom and  the  spirituality  of  the  gospel."37  3.  Shaw:  "It 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  pieces  of  literature  that  have 
come  down  to  us  from  any  age.  It  is  earnest,  eloquent, 
dramatic ;  well-ordered,  concise,  consistent ;  and  it  handles 
one  of  the  most  important  themes  with  the  most  significant 
results.  .  .  .  The  church  can  scarcely  reckon  how  much 
she  owes  to  such  a  writing."38  4.  Ramsay:  "It  is  a  unique 
and  marvelous  letter,  which  embraces  in  its  six  short 
chapters  such  a  variety  of  vehement  and  intense  emotion 
as  could  probably  not  be  paralleled  in  any  other  work."  39 
5.  Godet:  "This  epistle  marks  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
the  race.  It  is  the  ever  precious  document  of  man's  spir- 
itual emancipation."  6.  Farrar:  "What  Luther  did  at  Wit- 
tenberg, and  at  Worms,  and  at  Wartburg,  that,  and  more 
than  that,  Paul  did  when  he  wrote  the  Epistle  to  the  Ga- 
latians. .  .  .  The  words  scrawled  on  those  few  sheets  of 
papyrus  were  destined  to  wake  echoes  which  have  lived,  and 
shall  live  forever  and  forever.  Savonarola  heard  them,  and 
Wiclif,  and  Huss,  and  Luther,  and  Tyndale,  and  Wesley. 
They  were  the  Magna  Charta  of  spiritual  emancipation."  40 

37  New  Testament  and  Its  Writers,  p.  137. 

38  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  pp.  84,  85. 

39  Ramsay,  Historical  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Gala- 
tians, lvi.  40  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  238. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS 


•      CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS 

I.  The  Roman  Church 

i.  Its  Founding.  There  was  a  Christian  church  in  Rome 
to  which  Paul  wrote  this  epistle.  How  had  it  come  into 
existence?  Paul  says  in  the  epistle  that  he  himself  as  yet 
had  not  been  in  the  capital  city.  He  was  the  great  mis- 
sionary carrying  the  gospel  through  the  Roman  empire,  but 
he  had  not  been  able  to  get  as  far  west  as  Rome,  though  it 
was  in  his  purpose  to  visit  that  city  and  to  go  on  still  farther 
west  into  Spain.  As  far  as  we  know,  none  of  Paul's  im- 
mediate associates  in  missionary  labors  had  preceded  him 
to  Rome,  founding  the  church  under  his  immediate  direc- 
tion and  delegated  authority.  Had  any  other  apostle,  then, 
undertaken  this  task  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  into 
the  capital  of  the  empire,  and  the  founding  of  a  Christian 
church  in  the  City  of  the  Seven  Hills?  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  maintains  that  the  apostle  Peter  had  the  great  honor 
of  establishing  the  Christian  faith  in  the  city  of  the  Caesars, 
the  center  of  world  government  and  power.  It  says  that  he 
came  to  Rome  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
Claudius  and  was  active  in  the  overthrow  of  the  heretic 
Simon  Magus  there.  The  authorities  for  this  tradition  are 
too  untrustworthy  to  command  the  respect  of  the  modern 
world.    Practically  all  Protestants  have  refused  to  believe  it. 

Paul  persistently  declined  to  enter  into  another  man's 
labors,  and  we  feel  sure  that  his  assumption  that  the  Roman 
Church  was  legitimately  within  the  sphere  of  his  influence 
precludes  the  possibility  that  Peter  already  had  laid  the 
foundations  there.     Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians  that  his 

301 


302  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

hope  was  to  preach  the  gospel  unto  the  parts  beyond  them, 
and  not  to  glory  in  another's  province  in  regard  to  things 
ready  to  his  hand.1  This  seems  to  be  a  reference  to  his 
proposed  work  farther  west  and  would  surely  rule  out  any 
knowledge  on  his  part  that  any  apostolic  labors  had  been 
expended  on  that  field.  In  this  epistle  he  tells  the  Romans 
that  it  was  his  aim  so  to  preach  the  gospel,  not  where  Christ 
already  was  named,  that  he  might  not  build  upon  another 
man's  foundation.2  These  passages  are  sufficient  to  prove 
that  Paul  did  not  know  that  Peter  ever  had  been  in  Rome ; 
and  we  may  be  sure  that,  if  Peter  had  been  there,  Paul 
would  have  heard  about  it.  The  lack  of  any  reference 
to  Peter's  presence  or  preaching  in  Rome  throughout  this 
epistle,  and  the  still  more  suggestive  omission  of  all  men- 
tion of  his  name  in  the  epistles  written  later  during  Paul's 
imprisonment  in  Rome  constitute  a  negative  proof  that  up 
to  that  time  Peter  had  not  entered  the  Eternal  City.  We 
are  disposed  to  believe  that  he  did  come  later,  but  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  personally  with  the  founding  of  the 
church.  Then  if  neither  Paul  nor  Peter  nor  any  other 
of  the  apostles  or  more  prominent  evangelists  or  mission- 
aries can  claim  the  honor  of  laying  the  foundations  of  the 
Christian  Church  at  Rome,  how  did  any  church  come  to 
be  there?  We  do  not  know,  and  we  are  left  largely  to  con- 
jecture at  this  point. 

It  has  become  increasingly  clear  of  late,  however,  that 
means  of  communication  by  person  and  by  letter  were  as 
open  to  all  at  this  time  in  world  history  as  at  any  later 
period  until  we  come  to  the  last  century.  The  Roman 
roads  made  travel  easy  and  the  Roman  empire  had  estab- 
lished a  good  postal  system.  It  was  an  ordinary  thing  to 
make  long  journeys,  and  removal  from  city  to  city  was  a 
quite  common  experience.  Greetings  are  sent  to  Aquila 
and   Priscilla   in  this  epistle,  and   we  learn   from  various 

1 2  Cor.  10.  16. 
2  Rom.  15.  20. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  303 

sources  in  the  New  Testament  that  they  had  resided  orig- 
inally in  Rome  and  then  had  moved  to  Corinth  and  later 
to  Ephesus  and  finally  had  returned  to  Rome.  Aquila  was 
a  native  of  Pontus,  and  he  and  his  wife  were  tentmakers, 
and  it  seems  to  have  been  a  comparatively  easy  thing  for 
them  to  fold  their  tents  like  the  Arabs  and  quietly  steal 
away  to  some  other  habitat  whenever  an  imperial  rescript  or 
the  exigencies  of  business  or  the  impulse  to  missionary 
labors  suggested  another  field  of  work.  They  may  have 
been  more  nomadic  in  their  habits  than  most  of  the  Chris- 
tians, but  doubtless  many  others  traveled  throughout  the 
empire  and  many  came  to  Rome  from  Jerusalem  and  Galilee 
and  Asia  Minor  and  Greece  and  settled  there.  After  a 
time  these  Christian  immigrants  may  have  become  sufficient 
in  number  to  form  an  organization  of  their  own.  Thus  grad- 
ually a  church  may  have  come  into  existence,  looking  to  no 
single  person  or  to  any  one  apostle  as  its  founder,  but  repre- 
senting the  results  of  the  Christian  propaganda  through  all 
the  farther  East. 

2.  Its  Composition.  From  the  epistle  itself  we  would 
gather  that  there  were  both  Jews  and  Gentiles  in  the  church 
at  Rome.  In  2.  17-24  Paul  directly  addresses  the  Jew.  In 
4.  1  he  speaks  of  "Abraham  our  forefather  according  to 
the  flesh."  In  7.  1  he  says,  "I  speak  to  them  that  know 
the  law."  A  large  part  of  the  epistle  would  be  of  chief 
interest  to  the  Jews,  since  it  discusses  the  value  of  the 
Mosaic  law  and  the  dealings  of  God  with  the  chosen  people 
of  Israel.  There  is  continuous  appeal  to  the  authority 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  much  of  the  argument  is  of  a 
nature  to  which  those  accustomed  to  the  methods  of  the 
rabbis  would  be  most  likely  to  give  heed.  These  internal 
phenomena  would  be  sufficient  to  show  that  there  was  a 
considerable  number  of  Jews  in  the  Roman  church,  and  that 
Paul  had  the  Jews  particularly  in  mind  more  than  once  in 
his  writings.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  salutation  Paul 
numbers  the  Romans  among  the  Gentiles  or  the  nations  to 


304  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

whom  he  had  been  given  the  grace  of  apostleship  (i.  5-7). 
In  the  next  paragraph  he  tells  them  that  he  had  purposed  to 
visit  them  in  order  that  he  might  have  some  fruit  among 
them,  even  as  among  the  rest  of  the  Gentiles  (1.  13).  In 
11.  13  Paul  says,  "I  speak  to  you  that  are  Gentiles."  "Inas- 
much as  I  am  an  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  I  glorify  my  min- 
istry." In  15.  15  he  reminds  them  that  he  writes  the  more 
boldly  unto  them  because  the  grace  has  been  given  him  to 
be  a  minister  of  Christ  Jesus  unto  the  Gentiles. 

Both  classes,  then,  both  Jews  and  Gentiles,  are  in  the 
church  and  Paul  addresses  now  one  and  now  another  in 
the  course  of  the  epistle.  Which  formed  the  dominant 
element?  Koppe,  Bauer,  Schwegler,  Thiersch,  Davidson, 
and  Wordsworth  thought  the  Jews  were  in  the  ascendency. 
Beyschlag  thought  that  it  was  a  church  of  proselytes, 
of  Gentile  birth  and  Jewish  training.  Schiirer  thought 
that  they  were  neither  Palestinian  Jews  nor  Pauline  con- 
verts, but  Hellenists  from  the  Diaspora.  Holtzmann 
thought  that  Paul  was  altogether  uncertain  as  to  the  com- 
plexion of  the  church,  and  so  varied  his  style  and  his 
address  as  he  wrote  to  them.  Meyer,  DeWette,  Olshausen, 
Tholuck,  Reuss,  Neander,  Weizsiicker,  Godet,  Sanday, 
Denney,  Shaw,  and  most  of  the  later  English  writers  have 
decided  that  the  Gentiles  formed  the  majority.  There  is 
no  way  of  determining  the  exact  proportion  of  these  two 
classes,  but  the  prevailing  tendency  at  the  present  time  is 
to  conclude  that  the  church  was  a  Gentile  church  with  a 
large  and  influential  Jewish  minority. 

The  population  of  Rome  numbered  a  million  and  a  half 
in  Paul's  day,  and  there  were  only  fifty  or  sixty  thousand 
Jews  among  them.  The  slaves  outnumbered  the  freemen 
two  to  one  or  three  to  one.  There  were  converts  to  Chris- 
tianity out  of  all  classes.  Lanciani,  in  his  Pagan  and  Chris- 
tian Rome,  declares  that  "recent  excavations  in  Rome  give 
quite  startling  evidence  of  how  the  gospel  found  its  way 
at  an  early  period  to  the  mansions  of  the  great,  and  even 


THE  "EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  305 

to  the  palace  of  the  Caesars."  3  Sanday  concludes  that  "we 
should  be  justified  in  supposing  that  even  at  this  early  date 
more  than  one  of  the  Roman  Christians  possessed  a  not 
inconsiderable  social  standing  and  importance.  If  there 
was  any  church  in  which  the  'not  many  wise  men  after  the 
flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble,'  had  an  excep- 
tion, it  was  at  Rome."  4  However,  the  majority  of  those 
to  whom  Paul  sends  personal  greetings  are  either  slaves  or 
freedmen;  and,  since  they  formed  such  a  large  majority  of 
the  population,  in  all  probability  they  formed  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  the  church. 

The  Jewish  ghetto  was  in  the  low  districts  of  the  Traste- 
vere,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  on  the  slopes  of  the 
Janiculum.  Somewhere  in  this  district  the  first  Christian 
assembly  may  have  been  organized ;  or  the  Christians  may 
have  met  here  and  there  throughout  the  city  in  private 
homes.  They  were  Jews  and  Gentiles,  rich  and  poor.  The 
Gentiles  and  the  poor  were  in  the  majority.  The  rich  and 
the  Jews  were  an  influential  minority.  They  were  founding 
a  church  which  was  to  be  the  center  of  Christendom  for 
many  centuries  in  later  history. 

II.  When,  Where,  and  Why  Was  the  Epistle  Written  ? 

We  already  have  said  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
belongs  to  the  second  group  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  This 
group  includes  First  and  Second  Corinthians,  Galatians 
and  Romans.  These  epistles  probably  were  written  in  the 
order  in  which  we  have  named  them.  Galatians  and 
Romans  are  much  alike  in  matter  and  form,  and  Galatians 
seems  like  the  first  draft  of  the  argument  which  has  been 
elaborated  and  perfected  in  Romans.  We  think  that 
Romans  must  have  been  written  soon  after  the  composition 
of  Galatians.  Galatians  was  written  some  time  in  the  winter 
of  A.  D.  57-58,  and  Romans  in  the  early  spring  of  A.  D. 

3  Lanciani,  Pagan  and  Christian  Rome,  p.  10. 

4  Sanday,  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  xxxv. 


3o6  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

58.  Both  Galatians  and  Romans  were  written  in  Corinth, 
while  Paul  was  there  as  the  guest  of  Gaius,  who  helped  him 
to  the  leisure  and  the  conveniences  so  necessary  to  the  medi- 
tation and  the  composition  of  two  such  epistles. 

We  can  imagine  him  there  pacing  up  and  down  the  floor, 
pausing  now  and  then  at  the  window  or  the  door  to  look 
out  upon  the  city  street  or  to  get  a  breath  of  the  early  spring 
air,  or  sitting  for  long  intervals  in  his  chair  in  a  dark  corner 
with  his  head  in  his  hands  as  he  pondered  the  fitting  ex- 
pression for  the  great  truths  he  would  set  forth  to  the 
strangers  and  friends  there  at  Rome,  while  Tertius,  the 
amanuensis,  sat  in  the  light  by  the  window  with  his  reed  pen 
in  his  hand  and  the  strips  of  papyrus  before  him,  waiting 
for  the  dictation  of  the  master  and  then  writing  as  fast  as 
he  could  make  his  pen  fly  when  the  torrent  of  words  burst 
upon  him. 

What  was  Paul's  purpose  in  writing  to  the  Romans? 
1.  He  wished  this  letter  to  prepare  the  Romans  for  his 
impending  visit.  It  would  serve  to  introduce  him  to  them 
and  would  give  them  a  taste  of  his  gospel  and  the  salient 
features  of  his  teaching.  2.  Paul's  life  was  at  hazard  con- 
tinually. He  did  not  know  at  what  moment  it  might  be 
taken  away.  Weiss  conjectures  that  Paul  had  in  mind  "the 
idea  that  this  epistle  might  possibly  be  his  testament  to  the 
church  and  to  Christendom  generally." 5  Therefore  he 
formulates  more  fully  and  more  carefully  than  he  ever  has 
before  his  whole  body  of  doctrine.  It  is  a  last  legacy,  the 
sacred  deposit  of  the  truth  intrusted  to  him  which  he  now 
sends  to  the  capital  city  to  be  kept  by  the  Christians  there 
for  the  Christians  of  the  whole  empire.  3.  There  seems  to 
have  been  a  temporary  lull  in  Paul's  stormy  career  at  just 
this  time.  The  troubles  at  Corinth  at  last  have  been  quieted. 
Paul's  victory  is  complete.  It  seems  to  him  a  fitting  time 
to  put  into  permanent  form  the  preaching  which  has  ap- 


6  Weiss,  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  I,  p.  307. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  307 

proved  itself  through  storm  and  stress  and  is  at  last  in  pos- 
session of  the  field.  He  is  in  a  hospitable  home.  He  is 
surrounded  with  friends.  He  has  comparative  leisure  and 
peace.  He  decides  to  take  time  to  write  a  sort  of  systematic 
theology,  to  fix  in  literary  form  the  final  product  of  his 
religious  and  theological  thinking. 

He  may  have  been  aware  of  certain  controversies  in  the 
Roman  church  which  suggested  particular  lines  of  thought 
to  him.  He  may  have  known  of  differences  between  cer- 
tain factions  of  the  church  which  led  him  to  emphasize  con- 
ciliatory positions.  He  may  have  heard  that  his  Jewish 
antagonists  had  reached  Rome  and  circulated  their  slanders 
against  him  there.  The  epistle  therefore  may  have  apolo- 
getic and  irenic  and  polemic  elements  in  it,  and  the  exact 
proportion  of  these,  in  our  ignorance  of  the  facts,  we  never 
shall  be  able  to  determine ;  but  in  the  epistle  itself  we  have 
the  final  result  of  whatever  motives  led  to  its  composition, 
and  this  result  proves  to  be  a  somewhat  systematic  develop- 
ment of  the  Pauline  theology.  It  may  have  been  Paul's 
intention  that  the  epistle  should  embody  his  doctrinal  teach- 
ing. Godet  sums  up  his  discussion  of  this  subject  in  these 
words:  "To  set  free  the  kingdom  of  God  from  the  Jewish 
wrapping  which  had  served  as  its  cradle,  such  was  the  work 
of  Paul.  This  task  he  carried  out  by  his  life  in  the  domain 
of  action,  and  by  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  in  the  domain 
of  thought.  This  letter  is,  as  it  were,  the  theory  of  his 
missionary  preaching,  and  of  his  spiritual  life,  which  is  one 
with  his  work."  6 

III.  Main  Features  of  the  Epistle 
1.  A  Theological  Epistle.  Paul  has  put  into  this  letter 
his  doctrine  and  his  experience.  His  theology  was  the  out- 
growth of  his  own  spiritual  life.  Therefore  in  these  para- 
graphs of  systematic  theology  we  catch  glimpses  of  Paul's 
spiritual  biography.  It  is  a  final  and  formal  presentation  of 
6  Godet,  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  58. 


308  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  product  of  his  own  acquisition,  inspiration,  and  thought. 
Luther  called  the  epistle  absolntissima  epitome  evangelii. 
Melanchthon  called  it  doctrince  Christiana:  compendium,  and 
he  wrote  his  own  Loci  Communes  in  1521,  the  lirst  system- 
atic theology  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  with  the  doc- 
trine of  this  epistle  as  its  basis.  Modern  authorities  concur 
in  this  estimate  of  the  epistle.  Hausrath  declares  that  it  is 
"the  essential  content  of  what  Paul  otherwise  preached  by 
word  of  mouth."  Hilgenfeld  describes  it  as  "a  complete 
presentation  of  the  gospel  which  Paul  preached  among  the 
Gentiles."  Pfleiderer  says  that  it  is  "an  objective  develop- 
ment of  the  truth  of  the  gospel,  drawn  from  the  nature 
of  the  gospel  itself."  7  Findlay  concludes  that  "the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  is  the  complete  and  mature  expression  of 
the  apostle's  main  doctrines,  which  it  unfolds  in  due  order 
and  proportion,  and  combines  into  an  organic  whole.  No 
other  New  Testament  writing  except  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  approaches  so  nearly  the  character  of  a  doctrinal 
treatise.  For  the  purposes  of  systematic  theology,  it  is  the 
most  important  book  in  the  Bible."  8 

Here  we  find  adequate  discussion  of  anthropology  and 
soteriology,  redemption  and  sanctification,  the  wrath  of 
God  and  the  righteousness  of  God,  the  work  of  Christ  and 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  natural  religion  and  Christian 
ethics,  the  theology  of  salvation  and  the  theology  of  history 
and  the  theology  of  the  Christian  life.  The  great  antinomies 
and  paradoxes  of  the  Christian  faith  are  faced  without 
flinching  and  discussed  without  dodging.  The  downright 
honesty  and  the  profound  logic  of  the  apostle  have  appealed 
to  Augustine  and  Martin  Luther  and  John  Calvin  and 
Jonathan  Edwards.  This  epistle  has  had  a  dominant  influ- 
ence  in  fixing  the  dogma  of  the  Christian  Church  from  the 
beginning  to  the  present  day.  Great  controversies  have 
raged  over  the  definitions  of  its  terms  and  the  inferences 

7  Expositor's  Greek  Te  tament,  II,  pp.  570,  571. 

8  Findlay,  'flu-  Epi  ties  of  Paul,  \>.  149. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  309 

from  its  theology,  but  all  combatants  have  been  disposed  to 
claim  that  they  represented  Paul  fairly  and  were  his  loyal 
interpreters. 

Of  course  in  an  epistle  of  this  size  there  cannot  be  an 
exhaustive  discussion  of  all  the  various  elements  of  Chris- 
tian theology.  That  which  is  less  emphatic  here  finds  fuller 
expression  in  other  epistles.  ( 1 )  Eschatology  is  not  made 
as  prominent  here  as  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians. 
(a)  The  word  "heaven"  occurs  only  twice  in  the  epistle, 
once  in  mentioning  the  wrath  of  God  from  heaven  and 
once  in  quoting  from  Deuteronomy  the  question,  "Who  shall 
ascend  into  heaven"  (to  bring  Christ  down)  ?  We  would 
learn  little  of  the  details  of  the  life  after  death  from  this 
epistle.  The  certainty  of  eternal  life  is  set  before  us,  but 
we  are  told  nothing  more  about  it.  The  theology  of  the 
epistle  is  of  practical  value  for  the  life  that  now  is.  It  has 
the  promise  of  the  life  to  come,  but  it  has  no  description  of 
it.  (b)  The  words  "Hades"  or  "Gehenna"  or  "Tartarus" — 
the  New  Testament  words  for  "hell" — are  not  to  be  found 
in  this  epistle.  The  word  "devil"  does  not  occur  in  it. 
The  name  "Satan"  occurs  only  once,  in  the  gracious  promise, 
"God  .  .  .  shall  bruise  Satan  under  your  feet  shortly."  ° 
(2)  There  is  no  allusion  to  the  cross  in  this  epistle,  though 
the  death  of  Christ  receives  its  significant  treatment  more 
than  once.  (3)  The  thought  of  the  resurrection  and  of  the 
resurrection  life  underlies  a  large  part  of  the  discussion  in 
the  epistle,  but  the  resurrection  itself  is  not  treated  so  fully 
as  in  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  (4)  The  church 
is  mentioned  only  once,  and  then  only  in  its  local  and 
restricted  sense,  when  toward  the  close  of  the  epistle  Gaius 
is  commended  for  his  hospitality  to  Paul  and  to  the  whole 
church.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  is  the  church  epistle. 
(5)  Little  or  nothing  is  said  about  the  Person  of  Christ  in 
this  epistle.     The  work  of  Christ  is  to  the  front  here.     In 

9  Rom.  16.  20. 


310  PAUL  AND  FITS  EPISTLES 

comparison,  Colossians  and  Ephesians  and  Philippians  are 
all  Christological  epistles.  (6)  There  is  less  of  local  color- 
ing in  this  epistle  than  in  most  of  the  others.  We  learn  little 
about  the  condition  of  the  church,  and  it  is  possible  that 
Paul  knew  very  little  about  it.  We  find  no  references  to 
current  events  or  contemporary  world  history.  It  was  a 
period  of  peace,  in  those  first  best  years  of  Nero's  reign 
before  he  had  developed  the  qualities  which  made  him 
infamous  in  both  Christian  and  pagan  memory.  In  a 
treatise  of  this  sort  there  was  no  necessity  for  the  mention 
of  these  things.  The  body  of  the  epistle  is  impersonal  and 
general  in  its  treatment  of  the  great  issues  of  the  Christian's 
creed. 

2.  Answers  to  Charges.  The  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians  is  an  answer  to  Paul's  slanderers,  but  most  of 
the  charges  made  against  him  at  Corinth  were  personal 
rather  than  doctrinal.  It  may  be  that  in  this  epistle  we  get 
glimpses  of  some  of  the  charges  made  against  Paul's  doc- 
trinal teaching.  The  discussion  again  and  again  takes  on 
the  character  of  a  reply  to  a  personal  antagonist,  and  some- 
times there  is  the  sharp  give-and-take  of  a  dialogue  debate. 
In  the  interrogations  and  objections  Paul  introduces  into 
his  argument  we  think  we  can  detect  the  personal  Jewish 
antagonist  whom  he  has  faced  so  many  times  and  with 
whose  methods  of  retort  he  is  so  familiar.  We  gather  that 
there  were  those  who  said  (i)  that  Paul  made  the  law  of 
none  effect,  and,  worse  still,  made  the  law  sinful  and  the 
instigator  to  sin.10  (2)  Paul  was  slanderously  reported  to 
have  said,  "Let  us  do  evil,  that  good  may  come."  1X  (3) 
Some  said  that  Paul  taught  that  Christians  were  no  longer 
under  law  and  were  free  to  sin  in  order  that  grace  might 
the  more  abound.12  (4)  Paul  had  been  branded  as  an 
apostate,  who  had  transferred  his  allegiance  and  his  affec- 

10  Rom.  3.  31;  7.  7. 

11  Rom.  3.  8. 

12  Rom.  6.  1,  15. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  311 

tion  from  his  own  people  to  the  heathen  nations.13  (5) 
Possibly  there  were  those  who  charged  that  Paul's  doctrine 
of  Christian  freedom  had  raised  up  a  set  of  emancipated 
people  who  despised  their  weaker  brethren  and  so  caused 
dissensions  and  ill  feeling  in  the  church.14 

3.  The  Universal  Outlook.  The  fact  that  Paul  was 
writing  to  Rome  may  be  responsible  for  the  universal  out- 
look of  the  epistle.  It  was  appropriate  that  the  theology  of 
a  world  religion  should  be  formulated  for  the  church  in  the 
world  capital.  Paul  had  the  largest  conceptions  of  the 
future  of  the  faith.  He  believed  that  Christianity  would  be 
the  religion  of  all  the  Roman  world.  He  believed  in  the 
universal  redemption  wrought  in  the  Christ.  He  believed 
that  Jew  and  Gentile  some  time  would  be  united  in  the 
Christian  Church.  He  believed  that  he  was  laying  the 
foundations  of  a  church  which  would  be  as  wide  as  the  race 
and  which  sooner  or  later  would  bring  all  men  into  one 
glorious  unity  in  Christ.  What  he  has  to  say  in  this  epistle 
is  of  interest  to  all. 

"The  word  'All,'  as  has  been  truly  observed,  is  the  govern- 
ing word  of  the  entire  epistle.  All — for  whatever  the 
modifications  may  be  which  may  be  thought  necessary,  Paul 
does  not  himself  make  them — all  are  equally  guilty,  all  are 
equally  redeemed.  All  have  been  temporarily  rejected, 
all  shall  be  ultimately  received.  All  shall  be  finally  brought 
into  living  harmony  with  that  God  who  is  above  all,  and 
through  all,  and  in  all — by  whom,  and  from  whom,  and 
unto  whom  all  things  are  and  all  things  tend."  15  It  has 
been  well  said  that  "the  thought  which  runs  through  the 
whole  epistle  is  the  universality  of  sin  and  the  universality 
of  grace.  Its  four  main  positions  are :  ( 1 )  All  are  guilty 
before  God.  (2)  All  need  a  Saviour.  (3)  Christ  died  for 
all.     (4)  We  are  all  one  body  in  Him."  16    Few,  if  any,  of 

13  Rom.  9-11.  14  Rom.  12-15. 

16  Farrar,  Life  of  Paul,  p.  468. 
16  Wordsworth,  Epistles,  p.  200. 


3i2  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  other  apostles  had  the  enterprise  to  look  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  local  interests  to  the  unlimited  future  triumph 
of  the  faith.  Paul  was  the  imperialist  statesman  among 
them.  The  world  was  his  parish.  Wherever  he  might  be 
laboring  for  the  time  he  was  organizing  a  part  of  the  great 
unity  in  which  the  universal  church  some  time  would  be 
joined  together  in  the  adoration  of  the  Christ. 

4.  Its  Forensic  Form.  The  Greeks  sought  after  wisdom, 
and  when  Paul  was  writing  letters  to  the  Corinthians  and 
to  the  Ephesians  he  laid  great  emphasis  upon  the  acquisition 
of  the  true  wisdom.  Rome  was  not  seeking  wisdom  so 
much  as  the  universal  recognition  of  law  and  order.  Its 
mission  was  to  establish  justice  throughout  the  length  and 
the  breadth  of  the  earth.  That  may  account  for  the  fact 
that  in  writing  this  theological  treatise  for  the  Romans  Paul 
has  chosen  to  give  it  a  legal,  logical,  forensic  framework 
throughout.  The  race  is  summoned  before  the  judgment 
bar  of  God.  The  justice  of  God  is  manifested  in  both  his 
condemnation  and  his  acquittal.  The  Christian's  condition 
is  represented  under  the  figure  of  the  Roman  process  of 
adoption.  Paul  has  great  respect  for  the  Roman  magistrates 
and  urges  obedience  to  them  in  everything.  His  respect  for 
the  central  seat  of  world  government  and  the  great  source 
of  just  and  equitable  laws  may  have  influenced  him  in  the 
framing  of  his  thought. 

5.  Its  Dependence  upon  the  Old  Testament.  Every 
doctrine  of  the  epistle  is  shown  to  have  Old  Testament 
authority  behind  it.  There  are  more  than  sixty  quotations 
from  the  Old  Testament  in  these  sixteen  chapters — more 
than  in  all  the  other  Pauline  epistles  put  together.  The 
phrase,  "according  as  it  is  written,"  occurs  nineteen  times. 
Take  the  quotations  out  of  any  one  division  of  the  doctrinal 
discussion,  and  it  would  seem  as  if  the  foundations  had 
been  removed.  Remove  the  quotations  from  some  of  these 
pages,  and  it  would  seem  as  if  the  substance  had  disap- 
peared   and    the    merest    skeleton    were    remaining.      The 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  313 

Roman  law  may  have  furnished  a  part  of  the  framework, 
but  the  Old  Testament  has  furnished  the  substantial  norm 
upon  which  all  the  apostle's  thinking  has  builded.  His 
Christian  theology  has  a  genuinely  and  loyally  Jewish  basis. 

IV.  Some  Estimates  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Chrysostom  had  this  epistle  read  to  him  twice  a  week. 
2.  Melanchthon  copied  it  twice  with  his  own  hands.  3. 
Luther:  "This  epistle  is  the  true  masterpiece  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  purest  gospel.  It  deserves  not  only  to  be 
known  word  for  word  by  every  Christian  but  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  his  meditation  day  by  day,  the  daily  bread  of  his 
soul;  for  it  can  never  be  too  much  or  too  well  studied  and 
the  more  time  one  spends  on  it  the  more  precious  it  becomes, 
the  better  it  appears.  .  .  .  This  epistle  is  to  my  mind  at 
the  same  time  a  commentary  upon,  and  an  epitome  of, 
all  the  Sacred  Scripture  and  always  its  light  and  apocalypse." 
These  quotations  are  from  Luther's  preface  to  his  Com- 
mentary upon  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  we  recall  that 
it  was  while  one  read  from  this  preface  in  the  little  Mora- 
vian meeting  in  Aldersgate  Street  in  London  that  John 
Wesley  listened  until  he  felt  his  "heart  strangely  warmed," 
and  he  felt  that  he  did  trust  in  Christ,  Christ  alone,  for 
salvation.  Paul  was  responsible  for  all  Protestantism 
through  Martin  Luther,  and  Luther's  Preface  to  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  for  all  Methodism  through  the  conversion 
of  John  Wesley.  4.  Calvin :  "It  opens  the  door  to  all  the 
treasures  of  the  Scriptures."  5.  Matthew  Henry:  "If  we 
compare  scripture  with  scripture,  in  the  Old  Testament, 
David's  Psalms,  and  in  the  New  Testament,  Paul's  epistles 
are  stars  of  the  first  magnitude,  that  differ  from  other 
stars  in  glory" ;  but  Romans  "is  superlatively  excellent,  the 
largest  and  fullest  of  all."  6.  Tholuck  calls  it  "a  Christian 
philosophy  of  universal  history."  7.  Chambers:  "The  intel- 
ligence and  stability  of  any  generation  of  believers  is  exactly 
proportioned  to  the  degree  in  which  this  marrowy  and  mas- 


314  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

culine  treatise  is  studied  and  understood  and  appreciated." 
8.  Godet:  "We  feel  ourselves  at  every  word  face  to  face 
with  the  unfathomable.  Our  experience  is  somewhat  anal- 
ogous to  what  we  feel  when  contemplating  the  great  master- 
pieces of  mediaeval  architecture,  such,  for  example,  as  the 
Cathedral  of  Milan.  We  do  not  know  which  to  admire  the 
more,  the  majesty  of  the  whole  or  the  finish  of  the  details, 
and  every  look  makes  the  discovery  of  some  new  perfection. 
.  .  .  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  the  cathedral  of  the 
Christian  faith."  17  When  Godet  was  preparing  his  com- 
mentary on  Romans  he  told  a  friend  that  there  were  pas- 
sages in  the  epistle  on  which  he  had  written  ten  times,  and 
even  then  he  was  not  satisfied.  In  his  Studies  on  the  Epis- 
tles Godet  pronounces  Romans  to  be  "the  greatest  master- 
piece which  the  human  mind  had  ever  conceived  and  real- 
ized, the  first  logical  exposition  of  the  work  of  God  in  Christ 
for  the  salvation  of  the  world."  18  9.  Farrar:  "This  is  the 
greatest  of  Paul's  epistles  and  one  of  the  greatest  and  deep- 
est and  most  memorably  influential  of  all  compositions  ever 
written  by  human  pen.  ...  It  is  unquestionably  the  clear- 
est and  fullest  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  sin  and  the  doc- 
trine of  deliverance  as  held  by  the  greatest  of  the  apostles. 
It  is  Paul's  definition  of  what  he  understood  as  the  gospel 
of  Christ."  10.  Sanday:  "It  is  one  of  the  most  original  of 
writings.  No  Christian  can  have  read  it  for  the  first  time 
without  feeling  that  he  was  introduced  to  heights  and  depths 
of  Christianity  of  which  he  had  never  been  conscious 
before.  .  .  .  It  is  a  body  of  teaching  which  eighteen  cen- 
turies of  Christian  interpreters  have  failed  to  exhaust."  1!l 
io.  Deissmann :  "How  are  we  to  explain  the  mighty  influ- 
ence exerted  by  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  upon  the  Chris- 
tianity of  so  many  centuries  ?  How  came  a  writing  that  took 
its  rise  under  such  simple  conditions,  to  be  fifteen  centuries 

17  Godet,  Commentary,  p.  1. 

18  Godet,  Studies  on  the  Epistles,  p.  140. 

19  Sanday,  Commentary,  pp.  xli,  xliv. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  315 

afterward  the  Magna  Charta  of  evangelical  Protestantism? 
In  the  first  place,  it  might  be  said,  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
is  the  most  ecumenical  of  all  the  Pauline  letters.  Com- 
pared with  Second  Corinthians,  it  is  relatively  impersonal, 
generally  intelligible ;  and  it  lacks  the  numerous  allusions 
and  intimate  relations  which  so  seriously  obstruct  the  under- 
standing of  that  epistle.  But  it  is  self-evident  that  the  main 
ground  of  the  powerful  influence  exerted  on  Christendom 
by  the  Roman  Epistle  lies,  not  in  its  formal  characteristic, 
but  in  the  object  itself.  It  was  the  religious  power  con- 
cealed in  the  epistle  that  made  such  a  deep  impression  on 
Augustine  and  Luther ;  it  is  this  which  so  deeply  impresses 
still  every  evangelically  disposed  conscience.  We  stand 
upon  volcanic  soil  in  reading  this  epistle.  Paul  wrote  it, 
indeed,  under  conditions  of  greater  outward  and  inner  calm 
than  many  of  the  rest  of  his  letters,  but  it  too  was  written 
by  him  with  his  heart's  blood.  It  contains  confessions  of  a 
struggling  prophetic  soul ;  fire,  holy  fire,  glows  between  its 
lines.  This  holy  Divine  flame  is  what  warms  and  inter- 
penetrates us.  The  deep  understanding  of  human  misery, 
the  terrible  shuddering  before  the  power  of  sin,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  jubilant  rejoicing  of  the  redeemed  child 
of  God — this  is  what  for  all  time  assures  to  the  Roman 
Epistle  a  victorious  sway  over  the  hearts  of  men  who  are 
sinful  and  who  thirst  for  redemption.  ...  It  has  a  power 
not  to  be  destroyed  by  any  lapse  or  change  of  time."  20 

V.  Outline  and  Contents 

A.  Introduction,  1.  1-15. 

I.  Official,  1.  1-7.  These  verses  cover  a  single  sentence 
of  salutation,  which  forms  a  worthy  introduction  to  a 
worthy  epistle.  Farrar  says  of  this  salutation:  "It  is  the 
longest  and  most  solemnly  emphatic  of  those  found  in  any 
of  the  Pauline  epistles.  ...  In  one  grand  single  sentence, 
of  which  the  unity  is  not  lost  in  spite  of  digressions,  ampli- 

20  Expository  Times,  xi,  p.  no. 


3i6  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

fications,  and  parentheses,  he  tells  the  Roman  Christians 
of  his  solemn  setting  apart,  by  grace,  to  the  apostolate;  of 
the  object  and  universality  of  that  apostolate ;  of  the  truth 
that  the  gospel  is  no  daring  novelty,  but  the  preordained  ful- 
fillment of  a  dispensation  prophesied  in  Scripture ;  of 
Christ's  descent  from  David  according  to  the  flesh,  and  of 
his  establishment  with  power  as  the  Son  of  God  accord- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  holiness  by  the  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  We  ask,  as  we  read  the  sentence,  whether 
anyone  has  ever  compressed  more  thoughts  into  fewer 
words,  and  whether  any  letter  was  ever  written  which  swept 
so  vast  a  horizon  in  its  few  opening  lines."  21  Beet  calls 
this  sentence  "a  crystal  arch  spanning  the  gulf  between  the 
Jew  of  Tarsus  and  the  Christians  of  Rome.  Paul  begins  by 
giving  his  name:  he  rises  to  the  dignity  of  his  office,  and 
then  to  the  gospel  he  proclaims.  From  the  gospel  he  ascends 
to  its  great  subject-matter,  to  Him  who  is  Son  of  David  and 
Son  of  God.  From  this  summit  of  his  arch  he  passes  on  to 
the  apostleship  again,  and  to  the  nations  for  whose  good  he 
received  it.  Among  these  nations  he  finds  the  Christians 
at  Rome.  He  began  to  build  by  laying  down  his  own  claims  ; 
he  finished  by  acknowledging  theirs.  The  gulf  is  spanned. 
Across  the  waters  of  national  separation  Paul  has  flung  an 
arch  whose  firmly  knit  segments  are  living  truths,  and  whose 
keystone  is  the  incarnate  Son  of  God.  Over  this  arch  he 
hastens  with  words  of  greeting  from  his  Father  and  their 
Father,  from  his  Master  and  their  Master.  Every  word 
increases  the  writer's  claim  upon  the  attention  of  his 
ers.    — 

II.  Personal,  i.  8-15. 

B.  The  Treatise,  1.  16  to  15.  13.  (A)  The  Doctrinal 
Treatise,  1.  16  to  11.  36.  I.  The  Theology  of  Salvation, 
1.  16  to  8.  39.  (I)  The  Theology  of  Redemption,  1.  16  to 
5.  21.     1.  Its  Summary,  1.  16,  17.     This  is  the  text  of  the 

21  Farrar,  Life  of  Paul,  p.  459. 

12  Beet,  Commentary  on  Romans,  p.  38. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  317 

following  discussion.  It  contains  the  first  quotation  from 
the  Old  Testament,  and  Paul  makes  the  statement  of 
Habakkuk  the  subject  of  his  whole  discourse. 

2.  The  Wrath  of  God  upon  the  Whole  World,  1.  18  to 
3.  20.  This  section  sets  forth  the  appalling  need  of  re- 
demption, first  for  the  Gentiles  and  then  for  the  Jews. 
(1)  The  Wrath  of  God  on  the  Gentiles,  1.  18-32.  (a) 
The  wrath  of  God  revealed,  1.  18-23;  (b)  In  giving  them 
up  to  uncleanness,  1.  24,  25;  and  (c)  In  giving  them  up 
to  vile  passions,  1.  26,  27;  and  (d)  In  giving  them  up  to 
a  reprobate  mind,  1.  28-32.  It  is  an  awful  picture  which 
Paul  here  paints  of  the  degradation  and  the  viciousness  of 
the  ancient  heathen  world.  It  is  not  too  black  to  be  true  to 
the  life.  Looking  out  of  his  window  there  at  Corinth  while 
he  was  dictating  this  epistle,  Paul  could  see  on  the  Corin- 
thian streets  the  evidences  of  the  exact  truthfulness  of  his 
fearful  indictment.  (2)  The  Wrath  of  God  on  the  Jews, 
2.  1  to  3.  8,  (a)  Who  judge  the  Gentiles,  2.  1-16,  but  (b) 
Commit  the  same  sins,  2.  17-29,  and  (c)  Are  not  shielded 
by  special  privileges,  3.  1-8.  Paul  proceeds  carefully  here, 
but  his  logic  is  inexorable.  The  sinning  Jew  is  just  as  badly 
off  as  the  Gentile.  The  wrath  of  God  rests  upon  him  just 
as  surely.  (3)  All  of  this  is  according  to  the  Scripture,  3. 
9-18.  Paul  stops  to  pile  up  Scripture  references  in  defense 
of  his  positions.  They  are  most  of  them  from  the  poetry 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  are  not  to  be  pressed  too  liter- 
ally, but  they  are  sufficient  to  show  the  general  estimate  set 
upon  sinners  in  the  word  of  God.  (4)  Therefore,  every 
mouth  is  stopped,  3.  19,  20.  All  of  this  is  preliminary  to 
the  proclamation  of  the  possibility  of  salvation  through 
faith  in  Christ. 

3.  The  Righteousness  of  God  Manifested  to  All,  3.  21  to 
5.  21.  (1)  Through  faith  in  Christ,  3.  21-30.  Olshausen 
calls  this  paragraph  "the  Acropolis  of  the  Christian  faith." 
Calvin  says,  "There  is  probably  no  passage  in  the  whole 
Bible  that  sets  forth  more  profoundly  the  justifying  right- 


3i8  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

eousness  of  God."  Stolz  says,  "Whosoever  understands 
it  understands  the  apostle;  whosoever  misunderstands  it 
runs  the  risk  of  misunderstanding  the  entire  epistle." 
Martin  Luther  put  a  mark  opposite  the  twenty-fifth  verse  in 
his  Bible,  and  wrote  in  the  margin,  "Mark  this;  this  is  the 
chief  point  and  the  very  central  place  of  the  epistle  and  of 
the  whole  Bible."  Vitringa  called  this  paragraph  "the  brief 
summary  of  divine  wisdom."  The  poet  Cowper  found 
peace  for  his  well-nigh  despairing  heart  in  reading  the 
twenty-fifth  verse.  (2)  This  gospel  is  in  harmony  with  the 
law,  3.  31.  (3)  As  shown  in  the  case  of  Abraham,  4.  1-25, 
Paul  proves  that  Abraham  received  everything  by  faith,  his 
righteousness,  his  inheritance,  and  his  son.  The  father  of 
the  chosen  race  is  the  father  of  the  faithful  in  a  fuller  and 
a  higher  and  a  primary  sense.  (4)  This  righteousness  of 
God  gives  peace,  joy,  and  salvation,  5.  1-11.  (5)  The  possi- 
bility of  this  righteousness  is  as  universal  as  the  curse, 

5.  12-21.  The  remedy  is  sufficient  to  meet  the  need.  Has 
Paul  shown  that  all  men  have  come  short  of  the  glory  of 
God?  He  has  gone  on  to  show  that  all  men  may  be  re- 
deemed unto  eternal  life.  What  is  this  experience  into 
which  the  believer  is  ushered  by  faith?  Paul  has  set  forth 
in  order,  first,  the  need  of  redemption,  and  second,  the 
method  of  redemption,  and  now  he  comes,  third,  to  the 
results  of  redemption,  namely,  the  Christian  life. 

(II)  Sanctification,  or,  The  Theology  of  the  Christian 
Life,  Chapters  6,  7,  8.  1.  Sanctification  is  in  Christ  dead 
and  risen  again,  6.  1-11.     It  gives  (1)  Dominion  over  sin, 

6.  12-14,  and  (2)  Freedom  from  sin,  6.  15-23,  and  (3) 
Freedom  from  the  law,  7.  1-6,  (a)  which  led  into  bondage 
to  sin,  7.  7-25.  It  is  a  high  standard  for  the  Christian  life 
which  Paul  here  sets  up.  Some  think  that  it  is  too  high  to 
be  attainable  in  this  life.  They  think  that  even  the  grace  of 
God  and  the  power  of  God  are  insufficient  to  lift  the  weak- 
ness of  human  flesh  and  the  human  will  to  such  a  plane. 
Others  are  equally  sure  that  it  is  attainable,  but  "only   in 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  319 

two  jumps."  Faith  never  could  lift  a  sinner  into  such  a 
triumphant  life  at  the  moment  of  his  acceptance  of  the 
Saviour.  It  must  be  developed  by  growth  in  grace  and  it 
must  be  chastened  by  various  experiences  of  failure  before 
it  can  gather  itself  together  for  the  mighty  effort  necessary 
to  bring  about  so  blessed  a  consummation.  Paul  seems  sub- 
limely unconscious  both  of  those  who  think  that  he  is  talk- 
ing nonsense  and  setting  forth  impossibilities  and  of  those 
who  think  he  ought  to  have  made  certain  definite  divisions 
in  the  development  of  his  program.  It  is  all  as  simple  as 
the  sunshine  to  him.  All  men  need  to  be  saved.  All  men 
may  be  saved  by  faith.  Salvation  means  salvation  from  sin. 
It  is  attainable  by  faith  at  any  time.  Human  effort  never 
could  reach  it.  The  pitiable  straits  into  which  it  brings  even 
the  most  earnest  and  devout  are  pictured  in  the  seventh 
chapter.  The  Holy  Spirit  will  help  the  human  struggle. 
Paul  hastens  to  make  that  clear  at  once. 

2.  Sanctification  is  through  the  Holy  Spirit,  8.  1-30.  (1) 
He  gives  victory  over  sin  and  death,  8.  1-11,  and  (2)  The 
witness  to  adoption,  8.  12-17,  aRd  (3)  The  completion  of 
salvation,  8.  18-25,  and  (4)  Successful  intercession,  8.  26-30. 
Paul's  heart  is  so  warmed  as  he  pictures  the  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  this  eighth  chapter  that  he  is  constrained  to 
close  with  a  lyric  burst  of  praise. 

(Ill)  Final  Hymn  of  Assurance,  8.  31-39.  Who  shall 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ?  The  chapter  begins 
with  "no  condemnation"  and  it  ends  with  "no  separation." 
This  closes  the  discussion  of  the  theology  of  salvation. 
Paul  has  shown  us  the  whole  world  lying  under  the  wrath 
of  God,  and  then  the  righteousness  of  God  offered  to  the 
whole  world.  Then  he  has  pictured  the  Christian  life, 
aided  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and  identified  with  the  life  of 
Christ.  He  turns  now  to  the  problem  of  the  rejection  of 
Israel. 

II.  The  Theology  of  History,  chapters  9,  10,  II.  (I) 
In  Relation  to  the  Past,  9.  1-33.    1.  The  privileges  of  Israel, 


320  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

9.  1-5.  2.  Election  among  the  elect,  9.  6-13.  3.  According 
to  God's  will,  9.  14-18.  4.  Leading  to  Gentile  salvation,  9. 
19-29.  5.  And  Jewish  rejection,  9.  30-33.  (II)  In  Relation 
to  the  Present,  10.  1-21.     1.  Israel  is  not  subject  to  God, 

10.  1- 1 5.  2.  And  not  hearing  the  gospel,  10.  16-21.  (Ill) 
In  Relation  to  the  Future,  n.  1-36.     1.  A  remnant  saved, 

11.  1-10.  2.  Israel's  loss,  Gentile  gain,  n.  11-24.  3-  Israel's 
final  salvation,  II.  25-32.  4.  Closing  apostrophe,  11.  33-36. 
Paul  closed  his  study  of  the  religious  life  in  the  eighth 
chapter  with  a  hymn  of  praise  to  the  love  of  God.  He 
closes  his  study  of  this  most  pressing  theological  problem 
of  his  day  with  a  hymn  of  praise  to  the  wisdom  and  the 
knowledge  of  God.  He  loves  always.  He  does  always  for 
the  best.  Paul  is  ready  at  this  point  to  say  "Amen!"  and 
then,  as  his  custom  is  in  his  epistles,  he  turns  from  the  doc- 
trinal presentation  to  exhortations  concerning  the  daily  life. 

(B)  The  Practical  Treatise,  12.  1  to  15.  13.  I.  The  Chris- 
tian Life,  12.  1  to  13.  14.  1.  Complete  consecration,  12.  1,2. 
2.  Humility  in  the  use  of  gifts,  12.  3-8.     3.  Perfect  love, 

12.  9-21.  4.  Subjection  to  the  civil  power,  13.  1-7.  5.  Sum- 
mary of  the  law,  13.  8-10.  6.  Salvation  at  hand,  13.  11-14. 
It  often  has  been  noted  that  in  this  chapter  and  the  preced- 
ing we  have  a  series  of  close  parallels  to  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Knowling  says,  "It  is 
not  too  much  to  add  that  the  apostle's  description  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  reads  like  a  brief  summary  of  its  descrip- 
tion in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount :  the  righteousness,  peace, 
and  joy,  which  form  the  contents  of  the  kingdom  in  the 
apostle's  conception,  are  found  side  by  side  in  the  Saviour's 
beatitudes."  23 

II.  Practical  Christian  Brotherhood,  14.  1  to  15.  13.  I. 
Differences  of  opinion  are  not  grounds  of  condemnation,  14. 
1-12.  2.  Self-denial  enjoined,  14.  13-23.  3.  Mutual  helpful- 
ness commended,  15.  1-13. 


23  Knowling,  Witness  of  the  Epistles,  p.  312. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  321 

C.   Conclusion,   15.   14  to   16.  27.     1.   Paul's  apostolate, 

15.  14-21.  2.  Paul's  journeys,  15.  22-29.  3.  Paul  asks  for 
prayers,  15.  30-33.  4.  Paul  commends  Phoebe,  16.  1-2. 
5.  Paul  salutes  many,  16.  3-16.  6.  A  warning  against  divi- 
sions, 16.  17-20.    7.  Signatures,  16.  21-24.    8.  The  doxology, 

16.  25-27.  This,  the  longest  and  most  weighty  of  the  Pauline 
epistles,  closes  with  the  longest  and  most  elaborate  of  his 
doxologies.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  the  Greek  the  sen- 
tence is  an  incomplete  one. 

VI.   Integrity  of  the  Epistle 

This  is  one  of  the  four  great  Pillar  Epistles — First  and 
Second  Corinthians,  Galatians,  and  Romans.  No  serious 
attack  has  been  made  upon  its  authenticity  or  its  integrity, 
as  far  as  the  main  body  of  the  epistle  is  concerned.  The 
case  is  somewhat  different,  however,  with  the  last  two  chap- 
ters. The  following  facts  have  led  to  much  questioning  and 
discussion  concerning  them : 

1.  Marcion  omitted  these  two  chapters  from  his  edition 
of  the  epistle.  However,  we  know  that  his  New  Testament 
was  not  made  up  solely  on  critical  grounds.  It  was  the  pro- 
duct not  of  research  into  questions  of  authenticity  so  much 
as  the  agreement  with  Marcion's  own  theological  bias.  He 
would  have  rejected  these  chapters  if  they  had  not  suited 
his  preconceived  opinions,  without  considering  the  question 
of  the  genuineness  of  their  authorship  at  all. 

2.  The  epistle  seems  to  end  at  three  different  places.  At 
J5-  33  we  read,  "Now  the  God  of  peace  be  with  you  all. 
Amen."  Again  at  16.  20  we  read,  "The  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  be  with  you."  Then  at  the  close  comes  the 
elaborate  doxology,  16.  25-27.  After  the  first  benediction, 
the  commendation  of  Phcebe  and  the  salutations  are  added 
as  a  sort  of  postscript,  and  then  a  paragraph  of  warning 
and  promise,  followed  by  the  second  benediction,  as  though 
Paul  had  intended  to  close  his  epistle  again.  Then,  as  a 
second  postscript,  salutations  are  sent  from  a  group  of  the 


322  PAUL  AXD  HIS  EPISTLES 

Corinthians  who  may  have  been  present  in  the  room  as 
these  final  words  were  being  written,  and  then  comes  the 
finally  closing  doxology.  We  do  not  know  the  circumstances 
which  led  to  this  triple  ending  of  the  epistle  If  we  knew 
all  the  circumstances,  it  might  be  perfectly  clear  why  Paul 
twice  had  reconsidered  his  intention  of  cutting  short  the 
already  unusually  lengthy  epistle.  It  frequently  happens 
to-day  that  a  letter  is  written  with  a  number  of  postscripts. 

3.  The  doxology  appears  in  the  manuscripts  and  versions 
in  strangely  varying  positions.  (1)  In  X,  B,  C,  D,  E, 
and  in  the  Peshito  and  the  Vulgate  and  the  Memphitic  and 
the  yEthiopic  versions  it  is  found  where  we  have  it,  at  the 
very  close  of  the  epistle.  The  best  authorities  place  it  here. 
(2)  In  L,  most  of  the  cursives,  the  Greek  lectionaries,  the 
Greek  commentators  except  Origen,  and  the  later  Syriac, 
Gothic,  Armenian,  and  Slavic  versions  the  doxology  comes 
at  the  end  of  chapter  14.  The  lectionaries  may  be  respon- 
sible for  this.  The  personal  matters  in  the  last  two  chapters 
may  not  have  been  considered  suitable  for  public  reading 
and  therefore  may  have  been  omitted  from  the  lectionaries, 
while  the  doxology  was  too  precious  to  be  lost  in  the  public 
readings  and  it  therefore  was  moved  up  to  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  chapter.  From  the  lectionaries  this  arrangement 
may  have  passed  into  later  manuscripts  and  versions.  (3) 
The  doxology  is  found  both  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
chapter  and  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  chapter  in  A,  P,  17, 
and  the  oldest  Armenian  version.  (4)  It  is  omitted  alto- 
gether in  F  and  G,  but  F  leaves  a  space  for  it  at  the  end, 
while  G  leaves  a  space  between  chapters  14  and  15. 

Upon  the  ground  of  these  and  other  facts  Lightfoot  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  Paul  some  time  in  his  later  life  put 
a  second  edition  of  this  epistle  into  circulation,  omitting  the 
last  two  chapters,  and  at  that  time  adding  the  doxology 
which  did  not  originally  belong  to  the  epistle.  Ilort,  Gif- 
ford,  and  Smulay  have  answered  Light  foot's  suggestion  in 
able   fashion.     We  know  too  little  to  be  sure  of  anything 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  323 

at  this  point.  We  have  the  facts  in  hand,  but  the  explana- 
tion of  the  facts  must  be  a  matter  of  conjecture  forevermore. 
4.  In  1829  David  Schulz  made  the  suggestion  that  the 
sixteenth  chapter  with  its  very  unusual  number  of  personal 
salutations  belonged  not  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
but  to  a  copy  of  this  epistle  or  some  other  epistle  sent 
either  by  Paul  or  by  a  Paulinist  editor  somewhere  else,  and 
most  probably  to  Ephesus.  This  hypothesis  has  found  favor 
with  a  great  many  modern  critics.  Among  them  are  Eich- 
horn,  Weiss,  Julicher,  Hausrath,  Holtzmann,  Iiolsten, 
Pfleiderer,  Krenkel,  Lipsius,  Ewald,  Richter,  Renan,  Reuss, 
Ritschl,  Laurent,  Schurer,  Sabatier,  Volter,  von  Soden, 
Weizsacker,  Schmiedel,  McGiffert,  Bacon,  Farrar,  Adeney, 
Scott,  and  others.  The  chief  reasons  for  deciding  that  this 
chapter  cannot  belong  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  are : 

( 1 )  Paul  is  writing  to  strangers  at  Rome,  but  in  this 
chapter  he  seems  to  know  all  about  the  internal  condition 
of  the  church,  with  its  dangers  from  divisions  and  occasions 
of  stumbling,  and  he  seems  to  be  certain  of  the  doctrine 
which  had  been  taught  to  them.  He  had  lived  two  years 
and  more  at  Ephesus.  He  would  know  these  things  con- 
cerning the  church  there  as  a  matter  of  course.  Would  he 
be  at  all  likely  to  know  them  about  the  church  at  Rome  ?  It 
is  surely  true  that  in  the  body  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
we  find  no  trace  of  such  knowledge. 

(2)  The  number  of  salutations,  twenty-six  in  all,  points 
to  a  church  in  which  Paul  was  well  acquainted,  as  the  church 
in  Ephesus,  rather  than  to  one  which  he  never  had  visited, 
as  the  church  in  Rome.  He  salutes  only  one  or  two  per- 
sons sometimes  in  churches  which  he  himself  had  founded. 
Would  he  be  likely  to  send  his  largest  number  of  saluta- 
tions, more  than  in  any  other  epistle,  to  a  church  where  he 
had  lived  longer  than  anywhere  else  in  the  mission  field  or  to 
a  church  which  he  never  had  seen?  Zahn  thinks  the  latter. 
He  says  that  in  writing  to  churches  where  he  was  well 
acquainted  with  all  the  membership  Paul  could  not  single 


324  PAUL  AXD  HIS  EPISTLES 

out  special  individuals  for  recognition  and  salutation  with- 
out making  invidious  distinctions  or  without  having  special 
reasons,  but  it  was  not  so  at  Rome.  In  writing  to  this 
strange  church  Paul  would  be  all  the  more  anxious  to  em- 
phasize the  personal  relations  which  he  had  had  with  indi- 
vidual members  among  them,  and  to  make  it  evident  that 
there  were  many  and  substantial  connecting  ties  already 
established  between  himself  and  the  church  to  which  he 
had  taken  the  liberty  to  write.  Zahn  strengthens  his  con- 
tention by  pointing  out  the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  single 
salutation  or  other  communication  intended  for  individual 
members  in  the  church  to  be  found  at  the  close  of  the  letters 
sent  to  Thessalonica,  Corinth,  Philippi,  and  Galatia.  On  the 
contrary,  at  the  close  of  the  letter  to  the  Colossians,  written 
to  a  church  which  Paul  never  had  seen  and  the  most  unim- 
portant church  to  which  he  ever  wrote  an  epistle,  we  find 
the  greetings  of  six  different  individuals,  only  one  of  whom 
ever  had  been  at  Colossae ;  and  Paul  himself  sends  special 
greetings  to  individuals  at  Colossse  and  at  Laodicea.  There, 
as  at  Rome,  he  would  have  the  church  feel  that  it  was  far 
from  being  altogether  strange  to  him ;  and  he  emphasizes 
his  intimate  relations  with,  and  personal  affection  for,  the 
members  whom  he  knew.24 

(3)  The  persons  greeted  seem  to  belong  to  Ephesus  rather 
than  to  Rome.  Aquila  and  Priscilla  were  at  Ephesus  just 
a  few  months  before  Paul  wrote  to  the  Romans,  and  in  the 
next  mention  of  them  in  the  New  Testament,  some  eight 
or  nine  years  later,  they  still  are  at  Ephesus.25  Is  it  at  all 
likely  that  in  the  interim  they  would  have  moved  to  Rome 
and  then  moved  back  to  Ephesus  again?  Is  it  not  more 
probable  that  they  lived  at  Ephesus  all  the  time,  and  that 
this  greeting  was  sent  to  them  there?  It  may  be  more 
probable,  but  it  is  altogether  possible  that  these  people  had 
moved  twice  in  this  time.     They  were  of  the  moving  kind. 

-*  Zahn,  Introduction,  I,  pp.  382-3. 
25  1  Cor.  16.  19;  2  Tim.  4.  9. 


THE -EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  325 

They  had  lived  at  Rome,  at  Corinth,  and  at  Ephesus.  They 
may  have  moved  to  Rome  again  and  then  moved  hack  to 
Ephesus.  Again,  it  is  suggested  that  Epsenetus  is  called 
"the  first  fruits  of  Asia."  26  This  means  that  he  was  a  resi- 
dent of  Ephesus  or  its  immediate  neighborhood  when  he 
was  converted.  Would  it  not  be  more  probable  that  he  was 
living  there  still  than  that  he  was  in  the  far-off  city  of 
Rome  ?  Possibly  so  ;  but  Zahn  suggests  again  that  Epametus 
as  the  first  convert  of  Asia  may  have  owed  his  salvation 
to  Aquila  and  Priscilla  before  he  had  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Paul,  and  that  he  has  accompanied  this  worthy  couple 
from  Ephesus  to  Rome,  in  order  to  prepare  quarters  in  that 
city  for  the  apostle,  even  as  they  had  done  previously  in 
Ephesus.  He  suggests,  further,  that  Paul's  commendation 
of  them  would  sound  very  strange  in  a  letter  to  the  Ephesian 
church.  The  Ephesians  knew  these  people  well.  They 
knew  what  sacrifices  they  had  made  in  Paul's  behalf.  They 
did  not  need  to  be  told  of  these  things.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  perfectly  natural  for  Paul  to  write  to  Rome  that  all  the 
churches  of  the  Gentiles  were  indebted  to  this  Jewish  couple, 
and  it  was  perfectly  natural  for  Paul  to  send  his  first  greet- 
ings to  them  and  their  first  Asian  convert,  if  they  were  in  a 
sense  his  forerunners  and  representatives  there  in  Rome. 
All  of  this  seems  possible  and  plausible  enough  on  the  basis 
of  the  suppositions  made;  and  anyone  is  free  to  make  any 
supposition  he  pleases  in  the  lack  of  any  definite  informa- 
tion as  to  these  things.27 

(4)  So  many  others  mentioned  here  are  Paul's  kinsmen 
and  fellow  workers  and  fellow  prisoners  and  are  his  beloved 
friends,  standing  in  such  relations  of  intimate  fellowship 
and  affection  that  we  look  for  them  in  a  church  where  Paul 
had  had  a  long  sojourn  and  had  undergone  many  perils. 
Andronicus,  Junias,  Ampliatus,  Urbanus,  Stachys,  Rufus 
and  his  mother  might  be  living  in  Ephesus  together,  but  can 

26  Rom.  16.  5. 

27  Zahn,  op.  cit.,  pp.  390-91. 


326  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

we  believe  that  these  closest  friends  and  relatives  had  all 
foregathered  in  Rome  ? 

(5)  If  all  of  these  good  people  were  at  Rome  when  Paul 
wrote  this  letter,  what  became  of  them  later?  Where 
were  they  during  his  imprisonment  there?  Did  Paul  not 
mention  Aristarchus  and  Mark  and  Jesus  Justus  in  his 
letter  to  the  Colossians  and  then  say,  "These  only  are  my 
fellow  workers  unto  the  kingdom  of  God"?28  Later  still 
did  he  not  write  to  Timothy,  "At  my  first  defense  no  one 
took  my  part,  but  all  forsook  me,"  29  and  again,  "Only 
Luke  is  with  me"?30  If  Paul  had  so  many  good  friends  at 
Rome  before  he  visited  it,  surely  some  of  them  would  be 
left  there  when  he  arrived  in  the  city. 

(6)  Phoebe,  sailing  from  Cenchreae,  more  naturally  would 
be  going  to  Ephesus  than  to  Rome.  However,  we  are  not 
sure  that  Phoebe  sailed  from  Cenchreae.  She  may  have  left 
that  port  and  come  to  Corinth  on  her  way  across  the  isthmus 
to  sail  from  the  western  port  of  Lechseum  for  Rome. 

Notwithstanding  all  of  these  considerations,  Lightfoot, 
Lietzmann,  Gifford,  Harnack,  Sanday,  Ramsay,  Denney, 
Godet,  Zahn,  Peake,  and  others  hold  to  the  complete  integ- 
rity of  the  epistle.  They  point  out  the  facts  ( 1 )  that  after 
the  mention  of  Aquila  and  Priscilla  and  Epsenetus,  whose 
names  we  already  have  discussed,  not  one  of  the  other  per- 
sons mentioned  in  these  salutations  can  be  shown  to  have 
any  connection  with  Ephesus;  and  (2)  some  of  these  names, 
such  as  Urbanus,  Rufus,  Ampliatus,  Julia,  and  Junia,  are 
Latin  names  and  would  be  more  likely  to  be  found  in  a 
church  at  Rome  than  at  Ephesus,  and  both  Narcissus  and 
Aristobulns,  whose  households  are  mentioned,  are  friends 
of  the  Emperor  Claudius  and  resident  at  Rome;  and  (3) 
fourteen  of  these  names — Urbanus,  Rufus,  Ampliatus, 
Julia,    Stachys,    Apelles,    Tryphrena,    Tryphosa,    Hermes, 

28  Col.  4.  io,  11. 

29  2  Tim.  4.  16. 
s°  2  Tim.  4.  11. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  ROMANS  327 

Hernias,  Patrobas,  Philologus,  Andronicus,  and  Nereus — 
are  found  in  the  sepulchral  inscriptions  on  the  Appian  Way 
in  the  lists  of  persons  connected  with  Csesar's  household 
and  contemporary  with  Paul.  Without  better  reasons,  then, 
than  have  been  furnished,  conservative  scholarship  prefers 
to  abide  by  the  tradition  that  the  sixteenth  chapter  belongs 
to  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON 

I.  The  Prison  Trilogy  of  Pauline  Epistles 

The  Pauline  epistles  fall  into  four  groups  not  only  in 
their  chronological  order  but  also  in  the  character  of  their 
contents.  We  now  have  reached  the  third  of  these  groups. 
The  eschatological  group  comes  first,  First  and  Second 
Thessalonians.  Some  five  years  later  the  soteriological 
group  was  written,  First  and  Second  Corinthians,  Galatians, 
and  Romans.  After  another  interval  of  approximately  five 
years  another  group  of  four  epistles  was  written  from  the 
prison  at  Rome.  They  are  the  Christological  epistles,  or 
the  epistles  of  Christ  and  his  church. 

We  think  that  the  order  of  their  writing  was  as  follows: 
Paul  had  occasion  to  send  a  runaway  slave  home  to  his 
master.  He  wrote  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  to  insure  a 
kindly  reception  for  the  fugitive  who  had  been  converted 
in  Rome.  Tychicus  accompanied  Onesimus  from  Rome  to 
Colossse.  Paul  took  advantage  of  the  fact  that  he  had  these 
two  messengers  at  hand  and  wrote  a  longer  epistle  to  the 
church  at  Colossae  which  Tychicus  was  commissioned  to 
deliver.  Then  when  the  two  epistles  were  completed  he 
concluded  to  write  a  third  epistle  a  little  more  elaborate, 
covering  the  same  ground  as  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians 
in  a  more  thorough  and  satisfactory  manner,  which  Tychicus 
and  Onesimus  might  carry  with  them  to  Ephesus  first  and 
which  might  serve  as  a  circular  letter  for  all  the  churches 
of  Asia  Minor.  This,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the  natural 
order  in  this  trilogy;  the  little  epistle  to  Philemon  first, 
the  longer  epistle  to  the  Colossians  second,  and  the  most 
elaborate  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  third. 

33i 


332  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

They  were  closely  connected  in  thought.  Colossians  sets 
forth  the  dignity  of  Christ,  the  Head  of  the  church. 
Ephesians  presents  the  sublimity  of  the  church,  the  Body  of 
Christ.  Philemon  makes  clear  the  value  of  each  individual 
member  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  even  if  he  be  only  a  slave. 
Philippians,  the  fourth  epistle  of  this  prison  group,  was 
written  probably  a  year  or  two  later  and  upon  an  entirely 
different  occasion,  and  therefore  may  be  separated  from  this 
Prison  Trilogy  in  our  discussion. 

II.  The  Persons  Addressed 

We  take  up  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  first  in  order  in  this 
group  and  we  consider  next  the  persons  to  whom  the  epistle 
is  addressed. 

Paul  had  a  long  ministry  in  Ephesus  and  there  were 
many  converts.  The  influence  of  the  new  movement  spread 
from  the  city  into  all  the  regions  round  about.  The  silver- 
smiths were  ready  to  say  that  not  only  in  Ephesus  but 
almost  throughout  all  Asia  Paul  had  persuaded  the  people 
to  turn  from  idolatry  to  the  worship  of  God  and  the  disciple- 
ship  of  Jesus.1  Among  these  people  from  the  outlying  dis- 
tricts who  were  attracted  by  Paul's  preaching  and  were 
convinced  by  his  teaching  was  a  man  named  Philemon. 
Tradition  says  that  he  was  resident  in  Colossae.2  We  are 
told  explicitly  that  Onesimus  was  at  home  in  Colossae.3 
Theodoret,  a  Syrian  bishop  of  the  fifth  century,  tells  us  that 
the  house  of  Philemon  at  Colossae  still  was  standing  in  his 
day.  We  see  no  reason  to  question  the  tradition  at  this 
point. 

This  Philemon  became  closely  associated  with  the  Pauline 
mission.  He  may  have  been  a  partner  with  Paul  in  some 
business  enterprise,4  and  we  know  that  he  was  an  intimate 
and  trusted  friend,  and  a   faithful   fellow  worker  in  the 

1  Acts  19.  26. 

'Compare  Philem.  I,  2  with  Col.  4.  17. 

9  Col.  4.  9.  *  Philem.  17. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  333 

Christian  propagandism.5  This  epistle  is  addressed  to  him 
"and  to  Apphia  our  sister,  and  to  Archippus  our  fellow 
soldier,  and  to  the  church  in  thy  house."  We  do  not  know 
who  Apphia  and  Archippus  were,  but  since  they  are  ad- 
dressed along  with  Philemon  in  a  letter  concerning  a  private 
and  domestic  affair,  it  lies  at  hand  to  suppose  that  Apphia 
was  Philemon's  wife,  and  Archippus  was  their  son,  and 
that  the  church  in  the  house  of  Philemon  was  the  church 
in  the  home  of  the  three.  Then  these  three  names  would 
represent  a  Christian  family  in  Colossae,  and  probably  the 
most  important  Christian  family  in  the  place,  since  the 
church  assembled  in  their  home.  They  probably  were  well- 
to-do  and  had  a  household  of  slaves  to  minister  to  them 
as  any  other  family  in  their  circumstances  would. 

III.  Occasion  of  the  Epistle 

One  of  Philemon's  slaves,  Onesimus  or  "Profitable/' 
ran  away  from  him.  It  is  altogether  likely  that  he  had 
committed  some  misdemeanor  and  he  may  have  stolen  some 
property.6  In  either  case,  as  a  deserter  or  as  a  thief,  he  was 
liable  to  be  crucified  if  caught.  In  due  time  this  runaway 
slave  came  to  Rome.  Paul  was  living  in  that  city,  and  was 
occupying  his  own  hired  house.7  We  are  told  that  he 
received  all  who  went  in  unto  him,  preaching  the  kingdom 
of  God,  and  teaching  the  things  concerning  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Doubtless  it  was  a  very  humble  home,  but  Paul 
held  cottage  meetings  in  it  and  made  it  the  Saint  Paul's 
Cathedral  of  his  day.  Among  those  who  came  for  counsel 
or  instruction  or  help  was  Onesimus,  the  slave  from  Asia 
Minor.  He  must  have  heard  much  of  Paul  and  of  his 
work  in  Philemon's  home,  and  he  may  have  met  Paul  him- 
self in  some  visit  to  Ephesus  with  his  master.  Anyway,  he 
seeks  Paul  out,  here  in  the  great  capital  city.     He  may 

6Philem.  I. 

6  Philem.  18. 

7  Acts  28.  30,  31. 


334  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

have  wished  nothing  more  than  to  see  a  familiar  face;  or 
he  may  have  been  repentant  and  have  come  with  a  full  con- 
fession upon  his  lips. 

We  can  imagine  how  Paul  would  receive  him,  and  how 
for  Philemon's  sake  and  for  his  own  sake  he  would  deal 
with  him,  gently  and  lovingly  but  firmly  and  honestly,  until 
Onesimus  was  converted.  Then  when  Onesimus  shared 
with  him  all  the  joy  of  conscious  salvation  we  can  imagine 
what  comfort  Paul  found  in  him  and  how  much  he  would 
become  attached  to  him.  Onesimus  became  Paul's  personal 
attendant,  ministering  to  him  not  as  a  servant  but  as  a 
brother  beloved.8  The  hearts  of  these  two  men  were  knit 
together  in  Christian  love.9  Paul  kept  Onesimus  with  him 
until  he  was  assured  of  the  genuineness  of  his  conversion 
and  the  steadfastness  of  his  character;  and  then  it  was 
decided  between  them  that  the  only  right  and  proper  thing 
would  be  for  Onesimus  to  return  to  Philemon  and  try  to 
repay  him  in  faithful  service  for  whatever  loss  he  might 
have  sustained  through  Onesimus  before  the  latter's  con- 
version. Paul  writes  this  letter  to  Philemon  to  present  the 
facts  and  to  plead  the  cause  of  Onesimus.  The  slave  returns 
with  this  letter  in  his  hand. 

IV.  Description  of  the  Epistle 

The  aim  of  Paul  in  writing  this  little  letter  was  to  secure 
forgiveness  for  Onesimus  and  to  assure,  if  possible,  his 
welcome  in  Christian  love.  It  is  a  letter  full  of  courtesy 
and  grace.  It  begins  with  grace — "Grace  to  you  and  peace 
from  God  our  Father  and  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  10  It 
ends  with  grace,  "The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be 
with  your  spirit.  Amen."  1X  It  has  been  said  that  the 
Epistle  to  Philemon  was  a  practical  commentary  on  the 
injunction  of  the  apostle  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians, 


8Philem.  1 6.  10Philem.  3. 

9  Philem.  12.  u  Philem.  25. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  335 

"Let  your  speech  be  always  with  grace,  seasoned  with 
salt." 12  There  is  a  half-playful,  half-humorous  tone 
behind  the  earnest  and  courteous  appeal  of  the  epistle. 
There  is  evident  punning  at  one  or  two  points.  Paul  says, 
"I  beseech  thee  for  my  child,  Onesimus,  Helpful  or  Profit- 
able, who  once  was  unprofitable  to  thee,  but  now  is  profit- 
able to  thee  and  to  me."  And  again,  "Yea,  brother,  I  would 
that  thou  wert  an  Onesimus  to  me,  (eyd)  aov  bvaifi7]v) ."  13 
Baur  thinks  that  there  is  another  play  on  words  in  the  use 
of  the  two  contrasting  terms,  &xpi]OTov  and  eiixQijOTov  in  verse 
11.  We  find  the  pagans  sometimes  pronouncing  Christus  as 
Chrestus,-  so  that  this  verse  might  suggest  the  reading,  "He 
was  once  without  Christ  to  thee,  but  now  he  is  a  good  Chris- 
tian to  thee  and  to  me." 

This  is  the  only  strictly  private  letter  written  by  Paul 
which  has  been  preserved  to  us.  His  other  epistles  were 
written  to  churches  or  to  groups  of  churches.  The  Pastoral 
Epistles  were  written  to  the  heads  of  churches  and  concern- 
ing church  regulation  in  large  measure.  This  is  a  strictly 
personal  and  private  letter.  In  it  Paul  might  condescend  to 
playfulness  as  he  could  not  in  his  more  public  and  official 
communications.  Probably  he  wrote  scores  of  these  private 
letters,  but  all  of  the  others  have  perished.  This  single 
surviving  specimen  shows  that  Paul  was  both  a  gentleman 
and  a  saint,  and  we  may  judge  from  it  that  if  we  had  a 
complete  collection  of  the  lesser  and  private  Pauline  epistles, 
we  would  find  that  they  would  rank  with  those  of  Luther 
and  of  Rutherford  as  a  distinct  addition  to  the  engaging 
devotional  literature  of  the  church. 

A  recent  writer  has  said  of  the  Epistle  to  Philemon:  "If 
we  sought  to  show  the  secret  of  Paul's  success  as  a  mission- 
ary, we  should  certainly  turn  to  this  brief  epistle  in  prefer- 
ence almost  to  any  other.  For  that  secret  did  not  lie  so 
much  in  his  masterly  generalship  of  the  churches,  or  in  his 

12  Col.  4.  6.    Sabatier,  L'Apotre  Paul,  p.  194. 

13  Philem.  io,  11,  20. 


336  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

great  ability  in  the  statement  and  defense  of  the  gospel, 
as  in  his  devoted  love  to  individual  souls.  It  was  by  his 
affectionate  personal  interest  that  he  undoubtedly  obtained 
his  singular  hold  upon  men.  Wherever  he  went  hearts 
responded  to  this  winsome  attachment.  The  sunshine  of 
his  solicitude  seemed  to  focus  itself  on  each  single  life,  and 
to  make  that  life  its  peculiar  care.  Great  as  he  is  when 
panoplied  in  theological  armor,  'sheathed  with  logic  and 
bristling  with  arguments/  he  is  greater  still  as  he  lavishes 
himself  in  the  personal  ministry  of  love,  and  seeks  to  win  his 
crown  in  the  growing  grace  and  peace  of  the  souls  whom  he 
has  brought  into  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  We  might  indeed 
have  gathered  so  much  from  allusions  in  other  epistles,  but 
this  one  makes  it  particularly  vivid,  and,  indeed,  presents 
us  with  a  quite  unique  picture  of  the  apostle  in  all  the 
charm  of  his  intimate  intercourse  with  his  friends."  14 

Such,  then,  is  the  character  of  this  epistle.  It  is  a  personal 
letter  from  the  apostle  to  one  of  his  converts  concerning 
another  one  of  his  converts.  They  are  all  brothers  beloved 
— the  master  and  the  slave,  the  aged  apostle  and  the  middle- 
aged  business  man  and  the  youthful  runaway  thief.  In  the 
bonds  of  the  Christian  brotherhood  they  are  united  in  fel- 
lowship and  love.  This  letter  has  a  familiar  tone,  a  spice  of 
wit,  a  pervading  spirit  of  courtesy  and  grace,  and  an  under- 
current of  earnestness  and  serious  concern  which  gives  us 
some  conception  of  the  character  of  the  apostle  himself  as 
it  must  have  appeared  in  association  with  his  intimate 
friends. 

V.  Comparison  with  Pliny 

Grotius  and  others  have  called  attention  to  the  close 
parallel  between  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  and  that  written 
by  the  younger  Pliny  to  his  friend  Sabinianus,  pleading  for 
the  forgiveness  of  an  offending  freedman.  This  letter  of 
Pliny  has  been  justly  praised  as  one  of  the  most  graceful 

14  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  297. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  337 

specimens  of  letter-writing  which  have  come  down  from 
pagan  antiquity.  It  was  written  in  the  generation  next  later 
than  that  of  Paul,  but  it  represents  practically  the  same 
general  condition  of  society.  It  runs  as  follows :  "C.  Plinius 
to  his  Sabinianus,  greeting:  Your  freedman,  with  whom, 
as  you  had  told  me,  you  were  vexed,  came  to  me,  and, 
flinging  himself  at  my  feet,  clung  to  them  as  though  they 
had  been  yours.  He  wept  much,  entreated  much,  yet  at  the 
same  time  left  much  unsaid,  and,  in  short,  convinced  me 
that  he  was  sincerely  sorry.  I  believe  that  he  is  really 
reformed,  because  he  is  conscious  of  his  delinquency.  You 
are  angry,  I  know;  justly  angry,  that  too  I  know;  but 
gentleness  is  most  praiseworthy  exactly  where  anger  is 
most  justifiable.  You  loved  the  poor  fellow,  and  I  hope 
will  love  him  again ;  meanwhile,  it  is  enough  to  yield 
to  intercession.  Should  he  ever  deserve  it,  you  may  be 
angry  again,  and  all  the  more  excusably  by  yielding 
now.  Make  some  allowance  for  his  youth,  for  his  tears, 
for  your  own  kindly  disposition.  Do  not  torture  him, 
lest  you  torture  yourself  as  well,  for  it  is  a  torture  to  you 
when  one  of  your  kindly  nature  is  angry.  I  fear  you  will 
think  that  I  am  not  asking  but  forcing  you  if  I  join  my 
prayers  to  his ;  I  will,  however,  do  so,  and  all  the  more  fully 
and  unreservedly  in  proportion  to  the  sharpness  and  the 
severity  with  which  I  took  him  to  task,  sternly  threatening 
that  I  would  never  say  a  word  for  him  again.  That  I  said 
to  him  because  he  needed  to  be  well  frightened ;  but  I  do 
not  say  it  to  you,  for  perhaps  I  shall  say  a  word  for  him 
again,  and  again  gain  my  point ;  provided  only  my  request 
be  such  as  it  becomes  me  to  ask  and  you  to  grant.  Fare- 
well!"15 

The  parallel  is  quite  close  between  the  letter  of  Pliny 
and  that  of  Paul,  and  yet  the  contrast  between  the  two  is 
quite  striking.    Farrar  has  stated  it  clearly  as  follows:  "That 

16  Ep.,  ix,  21. 


338  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

exquisitely  natural  and  beautifully  written  letter  does  credit 
both  to  Pliny's  heart  and  to  his  head,  and  yet  polished  as 
it  is  in  style,  while  Paul's  is  written  with  a  sort  of  noble 
carelessness  of  expression,  it  stands  for  beauty  and  value 
far  below  the  letter  to  Philemon.  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
for  a  young  freedman  who  had  been  deeply  beloved,  and 
not  for  a  runaway  slave.  In  the  next  place,  it  is  purely 
individual,  and  wholly  wanting  in  the  large  divine  principle 
which  underlies  the  letter  of  Paul.  And  there  are  other 
marked  differences.  Paul  has  no  doubt  whatever  about  the 
future  good  conduct  of  Onesimus ;  but  Pliny  thinks  that  the 
young  freedman  may  offend  again.  Pliny  assumes  that 
Sabinianus  is  and  will  be  angry;  Paul  has  no  such  fear 
about  Philemon.  Paul  pleads  on  the  broad  ground  of 
humanity  redeemed  in  Christ;  Pliny  pleads  the  youth  and 
tears  of  the  freedman,  and  the  affection  which  his  master 
had  once  felt  for  him.  Paul  does  not  think  it  necessary  to 
ask  Philemon  to  spare  punishment ;  Pliny  has  to  beg  his 
friend  not  to  use  torture.  Paul  has  no  reproaches  for 
Onesimus;  Pliny  severely  scolded  his  young  suppliant,  and 
told  him — without  meaning  to  keep  his  word — that  he 
should  never  intercede  for  him  again.  The  letter  of  Pliny 
is  the  letter  of  an  excellent  pagan ;  but  the  differences  which 
separate  the  pagan  from  the  Christian  stand  out  in  every 
line."  16 

lHshop  Lightfoot  quotes  Pliny's  letter  and  then  says: 
"The  younger  Pliny  is  the  noblest  type  of  the  true  Roman 
gentleman,  and  this  touching  letter  needs  no  words  of  praise. 
Yet,  if  purity  of  diction  be  excepted,  there  will  hardly  be  any 
difference  of  opinion  in  awarding  the  palm  to  the  Christian 
apostle.  As  an  expression  of  simple  dignity,  of  refined 
courtesy,  of  large  sympathy,  and  of  warm  personal  affec- 
tion, the  Epistle  to  Philemon  stands  unrivaled.  And  its  pre- 
eminence is  the  more  remarkable  because  in  style  it  is  excep- 


Farrar,  Life  of  Paul,  pp.  627-8. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  339 

tionally  loose.    It  owes  nothing  to  the  graces  of  rhetoric ;  its 
effect  is  due  solely  to  the  spirit  of  the  writer."  17 

VI.  Other  Estimates  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Jerome  said,  "The  letter  is  written  with  evangelical 
decorum."  2.  Erasmus  declared,  "Cicero  never  wrote  with 
greater  elegance."  3.  Bengel  says,  "A  familiar  and  exceed- 
ingly courteous  epistle  concerning  a  private  affair  is  inserted 
among  the  New  Testament  books,  intended  to  afford  a 
specimen  of  the  highest  wisdom  as  to  how  Christians  should 
arrange  civil  affairs  on  loftier  principles."  4.  Bengel  quotes 
Franke  as  saying,  "The  single  Epistle  to  Philemon  very  far 
surpasses  all  the  wisdom  of  the  world."  5.  Renan,  with  his 
usual  enthusiasm,  declares,  "It  is  a  true  little  chef  d'oeuvre 
of  the  art  of  letter-writing."  1S  6.  Another  Frenchman, 
Sabatier,  writes  in  a  similar  strain,  "We  have  here  only  a 
few  familiar  lines,  but  so  full  of  grace,  of  salt,  of  serious 
and  trustful  affection,  that  this  short  epistle  gleams  like  a 
pearl  of  the  most  exquisite  purity  in  the  rich  treasure  of  the 
New  Testament."  19  7.  Ewald  wrote,  "Nowhere  can  the 
sensibility  and  warmth  of  a  tender  friendship  blend  more 
beautifully  with  the  loftier  feeling  of  a  commanding  spirit,  a 
teacher  and  an  apostle,  than  in  this  letter,  at  once  so  brief, 
and  yet  so  surpassingly  full  and  significant."  20  8.  Meyer 
is  not  prone  to  any  extravagance  of  statement,  but  he  says, 
"The  aim  of  this  epistle  is  pursued  with  so  much  Chris- 
tian love  and  wisdom,  with  so  great  psychological  tact,  and, 
without  sacrifice  of  the  apostolic  authority,  in  a  manner  so 
thoughtfully  condescending,  adroit,  delicate,  and  irresistible, 
that  the  brief  letter  belongs,  even  as  regards  its  Attic  refine- 
ment and  gracefulness,  to  the  epistolary  masterpieces  of 
antiquity."  21    9.  Von  Soden,  in  his  History  of  Early  Chris- 


17  Lightfoot,  Colossians  and  Philemon,  p.  317. 

18  L'Antechrist,  p.  96.  19  Sabatier,  L'Apotre  Paul,  p.  194. 

20  Ewald,  Die  Sendschreiben,  etc.,  p.  458. 

21  Meyer,  Commentary,  p.  396. 


340  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

tian  Literature,  joins  in  this  chorus  of  praise.  He  says, 
"The  whole  epistle  is  a  perfect  jewel  of  the  intimate  epis- 
tolary style  of  a  hero  whom  we  otherwise  meet  with  only  on 
the  heights  of  grand  world-moving  action.  In  its  own 
peculiar  way  it  convinces  us  of  his  surpassing  greatness  alike 
in  mind  and  heart."  22  10.  Marcus  Dods,  A.  T.  Pierson,  and 
others  have  called  the  Epistle  to  Philemon  "the  Idyl  of  the 
New  Testament,  combining  beauty  and  brevity,"  23  and  they 
have  compared  it  to  the  book  of  Ruth  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Like  Ruth,  it  is  "an  idyl  of  domestic  life,"  in  which  we 
escape  from  the  storm  of  controversy.24 

VII.  Luther's  Analogy 

Luther  said:  "This  epistle  showeth  a  right  noble  lovely 
example  of  Christian  love.  Here  we  see  how  Paul  layeth 
himself  out  for  poor  Onesimus,  and  with  all  his  means  plead- 
eth  his  cause  with  his  master:  and  so  setteth  himself  as  if  he 
were  Onesimus,  and  had  himself  done  wrong  to  Philemon. 
Even  as  Christ  did  for  us  with  God  the  Father,  thus  also 
doth  Paul  for  Onesimus  with  Philemon.  .  .  .  We  are  all  his 
Onesimi,  to  my  thinking."  We  all  have  belonged  to  God 
and  we  all  have  run  away  from  him.  We  have  been  prod- 
igals and  thieves,  for  we  have  been  wasting  our  Father's 
substance  when  we  have  taken  our  portion  from  him  and 
have  spent  it  in  riotous  living.  There  is  no  help  for  us,  as 
far  as  the  law  is  concerned.  The  law  is  against  us  and  will 
exact  from  us  the  full  penalty.  Our  only  hope  is  in  coming 
to  Jesus  and  casting  ourselves  on  his  grace.  God  counts 
him  his  partner,  and  he  will  listen  to  his  plea  in  our  behalf. 
He  offers  to  take  all  our  liabilities  upon  himself  and  he  asks 
that  all  our  indebtedness  may  be  put  to  his  account.  We 
come  back  to  the  Father  not  as  runaway  slaves  or  as  thieves 
but  as  brothers  beloved,  and  when  we  come  back  to  the 


22  Von  Soden-,  op.  cit.,  p.  107. 

28  Pierson,  Keys  to  the  Word,  p.  129. 

"'  Book  by  Book,  p.  157. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  341 

Father's  house  our  Elder  Brother  sees  to  it  that  we  are 
received  even  as  himself. 

VIII.  Some  Interesting  Questions 

1.  Why  did  Onesimus  run  away?  Had  Philemon  been 
a  hard  master  to  serve  before  his  conversion,  and  had  Ones- 
imus vowed  in  his  heart  at  that  time  to  take  the  first 
opportunity  which  offered  to  make  his  escape  from  the  hate- 
ful and  humiliating  servitude?  Or  was  Philemon  always  a 
good  master  and  especially  since  his  conversion  had  his 
household  regime  been  such  an  easy  one  and  the  opportu- 
nities to  take  advantage  of  him  and  his  good  nature  been  so 
multiplied  that  it  was  simply  a  yielding  to  natural  weakness 
or  to  natural  depravity  when  Onesimus  ran  away?  Or  was 
it  the  very  preaching  of  the  Christian  faith  which  had 
aroused  in  Onesimus  a  longing  for  freedom  ?  According  to 
Paul,  Christ  had  come  to  set  men  free.  The  gospel  of  Paul 
was  a  gospel  of  liberty.  It  surely  was  possible  that  many  a 
slave  as  he  listened  to  the  new  preaching  had  felt  that  this 
was  an  evangel  of  personal  emancipation  as  well  as  of  spir- 
itual equality.  Was  it  some  theft  or  some  other  form  of 
personal  delinquency  the  consequences  of  which  Onesimus 
was  afraid  to  face  and  was  this  the  sufficient  reason  for  his 
running  away?  There  is  room  for  manifold  conjecture  here, 
since  none  of  these  details  are  furnished  us  in  the  epistle. 

2.  What  happened  to  Onesimus  in  the  long  journey  from 
Colossse  to  Rome?  What  adventures  did  he  have  on  the 
way?  Did  he  spend  his  ill-gotten  gains  in  one  long  dissipa- 
tion and  then  recover  from  his  debauch  to  find  himself 
penniless,  and  was  he  compelled  to  undergo  a  series  of 
privations  and  hardships  which  nothing  in  his  experience  as 
a  slave  ever  had  equaled  ?  Or  did  he  hoard  his  stolen  valu- 
ables and  by  their  aid  pay  his  way  from  city  to  city  and 
from  port  to  port  till  at  last  he  came  to  Rome?  Did  he 
half  starve  in  that  city,  and  did  he  remember  that  in  his 
master's  home  there  always  had  been  plenty  and  to  spare, 


342  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

and  did  he  thus  conic  to  realize  that  freedom  was  not  such 
a  blessed  boon  as  he  had  supposed?  Had  he  himself  been 
robbed  and  left  half-dead  by  some  roadside,  and  had  some 
Christian  found  him  and  bound  up  his  wounds,  and  was  it 
this  which  brought  him  to  Paul  and  to  Christ?  All  life 
stories  are  interesting.  There  must  have  been  a  multitude 
of  the  most  interesting  adventures  in  the  travels  and  expe- 
riences of  this  runaway  slave.  No  one  has  chronicled  them. 
We  are  free  to  imagine  as  many  as  we  will. 

3.  What  conversations  took  place  between  Paul  and 
Onesimus  before  Onesimus  was  willing  to  go  back  to  Phile- 
mon ?  Onesimus  was  useful  to  Paul  in  his  ministering.  He 
took  the  place  of  Philemon  in  his  personal  service.  It  would 
be  a  great  loss  to  Paul  if  he  went  away ;  but  it  was  a  much 
more  serious  matter  to  Onesimus.  Did  he  argue  the  ques- 
tion at  length  with  Paul  ?  Did  he  take  the  high  ground  that 
slavery  was  wrong  as  an  institution,  and  that  it  was  incom- 
patible with  Christianity,  and  that  no  Christian  ought  to  be 
a  slave  ?  Did  he  suggest  that  it  was  through  the  providence 
of  God  that  he  had  been  enabled  to  escape,  and  that  his  life 
had  been  preserved  in  the  long  journey  to  Rome,  and  that 
he  had  been  brought  to  Paul  to  hear  and  accept  the  good 
news  of  salvation?  Did  it  seem  to  him  like  flying  in  the 
face  of  the  divine  will  to  go  back  again?  Did  he  ask  the 
apostle  some  embarrassing  personal  questions  ?  Did  he  want 
to  know  what  Paul  meant  by  saying  that  all  men  were  free 
in  Christ  and  that  there  were  to  be  no  distinctions  of  bond 
and  free  in  the  Christian  Church  ?  What  did  Paul  say  to  all 
of  these  things? 

They  must  have  talked  it  all  out  together ;  and  they  must 
have  been  equally  and  perfectly  clear  in  their  conclusion. 
"Of  all  the  many  conversations  of  which  we  would  fain  have 
the  record,  is  there  one  which  would  exceed  in  interest  the 
conversation  between  Paul  and  Onesimus  in  which  this 
matter  was  first  broached  and  discussed?  To  leave  his  new- 
found  friend,  to  turn  his   face  again  toward   Coloss;e,   to 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  343 

travel  back  all  that  way  in  order  to  surrender  the  liberty  he 
had  gained,  to  face  Philemon,  to  submit  to  any  treatment  to 
which  an  indignant  master  might  expose  an  insurgent  slave, 
to  accept  at  the  best  a  lifelong  bondage,  and  at  the  worst 
a  death  by  torture — to  do  this  voluntarily  and  to  do  it  be- 
cause it  was  right,  argues  an  extraordinary  conviction  both 
as  to  the  reality  of  the  divine  command  and  as  to  the  imper- 
ative obligation  to  obey."  25  Onesimus  was  taking  some 
serious  risks  in  returning.  He  must  have  been  as  sure  as 
Paul  that  it  was  the  only  thing  to  do. 

4.  Was  Onesimus  forgiven  when  he  reached  Philemon's 
home  again  ?  Was  he  taken  upon  probation  and  kept  under 
suspicion  for  a  while?  Or  was  he  freed  at  once?  We  are 
disposed  to  think  that  this  letter  had  a  favorable  reception 
and  led  to  the  reinstatement  of  Onesimus  in  his  master's 
confidence.    We  think  so  for  three  reasons : 

(1)  We  know  that  the  letter  of  Pliny  to  Sabinianus  led 
to  the  desired  result,  for  Pliny  wrote  to  Sabinianus  later, 
saying:  "You  have  done  well  in  receiving  back  your  f reed- 
man  to  your  house  and  heart.  This  will  give  you  pleasure, 
as  it  certainly  gives  me  pleasure ;  first,  because  it  shows  me 
your  self-control,  and,  secondly,  because  you  esteem  me  suffi- 
ciently to  yield  to  my  authority,  and  make  a  concession  to  my 
entreaties."  It  may  not  be  safe  in  this  day  to  argue  that  if 
a  man  who  is  not  a  Christian  is  generous  and  forgiving,  a 
man  who  is  a  professing  Christian  will  be  sure  to  be  equally 
so;  but  we  are  disposed  to  think  that  it  would  be  true  as 
between  Sabinianus  and  Philemon.  The  Christian  man 
would  not  be  likely  to  be  outdone  by  the  pagan. 

(2)  Philemon  was  a  man  who  had  faith  in  his  fellows.25 
He  had  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  and  he  had  faith  in  the  saints. 
He  was  not  of  a  suspicious  nature.  He  could  be  written 
down  as  one  who  loved  his  fellowmen.  He  had  such  a  love 
for  them  that  he  was  ready  to  bear  all  things  and  endure  all 

25  Scott,  Expositor  VIII,  ii,  p.  333. 

^Philem.  5. 


344  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

things  and  hope  all  things  concerning  them.  Paul  may  have 
had  him  in  mind  when  he  wrote  that  thirteenth  chapter  of 
First  Corinthians.  Who  knows?  He  may  have  been  at 
Paul's  side  when  Paul  penned  that  description  of  the  possible 
incarnation  of  Christian  love.  He  was  a  man  who  had  such 
faith  in  the  regenerating  power  in  the  gospel  of  his  Christ 
that  he  was  ready  to  believe  that  the  vilest  sinner  could 
become  the  greatest  saint.  He  had  faith  in  the  saints,  and 
Paul  appeals  to  that  faith  in  behalf  of  Onesimus.  He  says: 
"Let  your  love  for  Jesus  be  tested  by  your  love  for  Ones- 
imus. Let  your  faith  in  Jesus  be  measured  by  your  faith 
in  Onesimus.  He  is  one  of  the  saints.  Receive  him  now 
as  you  would  receive  me."  27  We  know  with  what  welcome 
and  with  what  unstinted  hospitality  Philemon  would  wel- 
come Paul  into  his  home.  We  are  disposed  to  think  that 
Onesimus  was  received  with  joy  and  restored  to  confidence 
in  answer  to  Paul's  appeal. 

(3)  There  is  a  personal  note  in  this  epistle  which  we  feel 
sure  would  prevail.  It  is  Paul  the  aged  who  makes  this 
request.28  Paul  probably  was  about  fifty-five  years  old 
when  he  wrote  himself  down  as  an  aged  man.  We  would 
not  call  that  very  old  to-day,  but  Paul  was  a  man  visited 
with  frequent  infirmity,  and  he  had  undergone  unparalleled 
hardships  in  preaching  the  gospel.  He  may  have  aged 
rapidly  and  he  may  have  felt  very  infirm  at  this  time,  and 
he  may  have  had  the  appearance  of  a  much  older  man. 
Anyway,  he  feels  warranted  in  making  this  appeal  in  the 
name  of  Paul  the  aged  one.  Then  he  reminds  Philemon 
that  he  is  a  prisoner  while  he  writes.28  He  has  lost  his 
liberty  for  the  sake  of  the  gospel.  How  he  would  like  to 
be  free!  What  he  would  ask  of  Nero  for  himself  he  asks 
of  Philemon  in  behalf  of  Onesimus.  Surely,  the  plea  of 
the  prisoner  of  Christ  Jesus29  will  be  heard  for  the  slave  of 

"Philem.  17. 
28  Philem.  9. 
"Philem.  1. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  345 

Philemon.  Then  he  offers  to  go  security  for  the  good 
behavior  of  Onesimus  or  for  the  repayment  of  his  debt. 
Could  Philemon  refuse  this  offer  from  Paul  without  show- 
ing a  lack  of  confidence  in  Paul  himself  ? 

Dean  Plumptre  thinks  that  the  partnership  which  Paul 
claims  in  verse  17  is  a  business  partnership.  It  is  not  merely 
Christian  brotherhood  and  a  sharing  in  the  inheritance  of  the 
divine  kingdom  and  a  common  interest  in  the  graces  and  the 
blessings  which  flowed  out  of  it,  but  he  thinks  that,  as  the 
sons  of  Zebedee  were  partners  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  with 
the  sons  of  John,  so,  since  the  selfsame  word  is  used  here  as 
in  Luke  5.  10,  Paul  and  Philemon  were  partners  at  some 
period  of  Paul's  work  in  Asia,  at  Ephesus  or  elsewhere.  He 
suggests  that  Philemon  may  have  taken  the  place  in  the 
tentmaking  firm  which  had  been  occupied  by  Aquila  and 
Priscilla.  Then  he  considers  that  the  statement  in  verse 
18  is  a  straightforward  business  proposition — "If  you  have 
sustained  any  loss  through  Onesimus,  debit  my  account  with 
the  whole  amount."  And  he  adds,  "If,  as  was  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  probable,  we  think  of  Paul  as  dictating  the  letter 
to  Onesimus,  who  was  to  deliver  it,  we  can  picture  to  our- 
selves the  impression  which  this  generous  offer  would  make 
on  the  amanuensis :  how  there  would  be  a  moment's  pause, 
how  the  apostle  would  seize  the  reed  pen,  which  had  been 
before  in  the  hand  of  the  scribe,  and,  in  the  large  ungainly 
characters  by  which  his  signature  was  identified,  add  his 
autograph  promise,  and  so  turn  the  letter  into  a  bond :  I 
Paul  write  it  with  my  own  hand^  I  will  repay."  30 

This  may  be  possible,  but  there  are  those  who  will  feel 
that  much  of  the  beauty  and  the  poetry  of  the  situation  is 
lost  if  Paul's  plea  descends  at  this  point  to  the  plain  prose 
of  a  business  transaction ;  and  they  will  rejoice  to  see  that 
Paul  immediately  reminds  Philemon  that  the  much  greater 
debt  which  Philemon  owes  to  him — the  debt  of  his  own  sal- 


30  Expositor,  I,  i,  p.  265. 


346  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

vation,  the  debt  of  his  own  triumphant  better  self,  the  debt 
of  his  Christian  life — will  more  than  balance  the  debit- 
sheet.31  There  is  this  fourfold  personal  appeal,  "(a)  I 
am  Paul  the  aged ;  I  will  not  make  many  more  requests 
from  you  before  I  die;  grant  me  this  present  plea,  (b)  I 
am  Paul  the  prisoner  of  Christ  Jesus;  it  is  a  fettered  hand 
which  I  stretch  forth  in  my  pleading;  grant  this  relief  to  the 
present  suffering  I  undergo  for  the  cause,  (c)  I  will  become 
security  for  Onesimus;  if  he  has  wronged  thee,  I  will  repay 
it ;  and  I  will  stand  surety  that  he  will  not  wrong  thee  again. 
(d)  May  I  remind  you  that  you  are  very  much  in  my  debt, 
and  that  the  granting  of  this  request  will  only  tend  toward 
the  evening  up  of  our  account?"  This  fourfold  plea  from 
the  personal  standpoint  surely  would  reach  Philemon's 
heart,  if  he  himself  were  not  by  natural  disposition  or  by 
Christian  grace  inclined  to  the  side  of  mercy.  We  think  it 
altogether  probable,  therefore,  that  the  plea  of  Paul  in  this 
epistle  was  a  successful  one. 

IX.  Genuineness  of  the  Epistle 

Since  this  is  a  purely  personal  and  private  letter,  and 
since  the  occasion  of  it  did  not  demand  any  particular  dis- 
play of  apostolic  and  divine  inspiration,  and  since  its  con- 
tents did  not  include  anything  of  especial  theological  or 
ecclesiastical  importance,  we  might  have  expected  that  it 
would  have  been  lost  to  sight  in  very  early  days  and  that 
few  or  no  witnesses  to  its  genuineness  would  have  been 
preserved.  It  surely  is  a  most  remarkable  fact  that,  not- 
withstanding its  character,  this  little  fugitive  epistle  should 
have  found  a  place  in  all  the  ancient  canons  and  in  all  the 
early  versions.  Marcion  the  heretic,  who  formed  the  first 
New  Testament  canon,  cut  out  many  of  the  books  we  have 
in  the  canon  of  to-day,  but  he  included  the  Epistle  to  Phile- 
mon. The  Muratorian  fragment  containing  the  oldest  ortho- 
dox canonical  list  mentions  this  epistle.    It  was  found  in  the 

31  Philem.  19. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  PHILEMON  347 

oldest  version  in  the  West,  the  Itala,  and  in  the  oldest  ver- 
sion in  the  East,  the  Peshito.  Origen,  the  greatest  seholar 
of  the  East,  quoted  it  without  hesitation.  Jerome,  the  great- 
est seholar  in  the  West,  defended  it  from  those  who  thought 
that  it  had  nothing  which  tended  to  edification.  The  very 
things  which,  according  to  Jerome,  caused  some  to  hesitate 
about  putting  it  into  the  canon  are  the  things  which  prove 
the  genuineness  of  the  epistle.  There  has  been  no  serious 
questioning  of  its  Pauline  origin  in  modern  times. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS 

I.  Colossi  and  Its  Companion  Cities 

About  one  hundred  miles  inland  from  Ephesus,  in  the 
little  valley  of  the  Lycus,  three  cities  stood.  I.  The  largest 
of  them  was  Laodicea.  The  name  was  a  common  one  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  Laodicea  on  the  Lycus,  as  it  was  called  to 
distinguish  it  from  other  cities  with  this  name,  had  received 
its  title  from  Antiochus  Theos,  who  named  it  after  his  wife, 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  century  B.  C  In  New  Testa- 
ment times  it  was  a  wealthy  and  magnificent  city.  It  was 
rich  and  had  need  of  nothing.  When  it  was  devastated  by 
an  earthquake  a  few  years  later  than  the  date  of  Paul's 
epistle  to  it  Tacitus  tells  us  that  it  proudly  refused  any 
assistance  from  the  state  and  unaided  rebuilt  itself  from  its 
ruins,  rising  like  a  Phcenix  from  its  dust.  Strabo  tells  us 
that  one  of  its  citizens,  Polemo,  became  a  king  and  a  father 
of  kings ;  and  that  another  public-spirited  capitalist,  Hiero, 
left  all  his  fortune  to  the  people  and  adorned  the  city  with 
costly  gifts. 

Laodicea  was  a  manufacturing  and  commercial  center, 
famous  for  its  carpets  and  cloths  made  from  a  glossy  black 
wool  unrivaled  in  the  markets  of  that  day.  A  medical  school 
was  there  whose  physicians,  Ramsay  tells  us,  were  noted  for 
their  treatment  of  the  diseases  of  the  eye.  Laodicea  was 
addressed  in  one  of  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches  of 
Asia,  found  in  the  beginning  chapters  of  the  Apocalypse ; 
and  it  would  seem  that  the  atmosphere  of  ease  and  luxury 
with  which  the  Christian  church  there  was  surrounded  had 
had  its  effect  upon  the  spiritual  life  of  the  community,  and 

35i 


352  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

that  it  was  characterized  by  lukewarmness  and  self-satis- 
faction ;  and  every  phrase  of  the  exhortation  found  in  the 
Apocalypse  is  seen  to  have  a  local  application  and  a  partic- 
ular pertinency  in  view  of  the  facts  we  now  have  stated. 
Its  wealth  and  self-sufficiency,  its  black  cloths  and  its  eye- 
salves  are  all  suggested  when  the  Apocalyptist  writes,  "Be- 
cause thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  have  gotten  riches,  and 
have  need  of  nothing;  and  knowest  not  that  thou  art  the 
wretched  one  and  miserable  and  poor  and  blind  and  naked : 
I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  refined  by  fire,  that  thou 
mayest  become  rich ;  and  white  garments,  that  thou  mayest 
clothe  thyself,  and  that  the  shame  of  thy  nakedness  be  not 
made  manifest;  and  eyesalve  to  anoint  thine  eyes,  that  thou 
mayest  see."  1 

Laodicea  had  a  stream  on  either  side  of  it,  and  the  river 
Lycus  running  before  it,  while  behind  it  rose  Mount  Cad- 
mus, seven  thousand  feet  high,  covered  with  eternal  snow. 
The  Lycus  was  a  strange  river.  It  was  a  tributary  of  the 
Maeander,  and  its  waters  were  strongly  impregnated  with 
carbonate  of  lime,  so  that  along  its  whole  course  there  were 
calcareous  deposits  and  all  the  strange  formations  and  fan- 
tastic effects  which  such  waters  produce.  Natural  bridges 
formed  themselves  above  it  and  at  one  place  the  river  dis- 
appeared from  sight  and  flowed,  as  Herodotus  declared,  for 
five  stadia  underground. 

2.  Hierapolis  was  only  a  few  miles  distant  from  Laodicea 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  river.  It  was  a  city  set  on  a  hill. 
Beautiful  for  situation,  on  a  broad  terrace  with  an  outlook 
to  the  south  and  the  east  and  the  west,  it  was  famed  for  the 
purity  of  its  air  and  the  healthfulness  of  its  waters  and 
the  natural  beauties  on  every  side.  The  cliff  on  which  it 
stood  was  one  of  the  natural  wonders  of  the  ancient  world. 
Lightfoot  says:  "It  is  at  Hierapolis  that  the  remarkable 
physical  features  which  distinguish  the  valley  of  the  Lycus 

1  Rev.  3.  17,  18. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIAXS       353 

display  themselves  in  the  fullest  perfection.  Over  the  steep 
cliffs  which  support  the  plateau  of  the  city,  tumble  cascades 
of  pure  white  stone,  the  deposit  of  calcareous  matter  from 
the  streams  which,  after  traversing  this  upper  level,  are  pre- 
cipitated over  the  ledge  into  the  plain  beneath  and  assume 
the  most  fantastic  shapes  in  their  descent.  At  one  time  over- 
hanging in  cornices  fringed  with  stalactites,  at  another  hol- 
lowed out  into  basins  or  broken  up  with  ridges,  they  mark 
the  site  of  the  city  at  a  distance,  glistening  on  the  mountain- 
side like  foaming  cataracts  frozen  in  the  fall."  2  Across  the 
valley  this  cliff  shone  like  marble  with  dazzling  whiteness, 
and  closer  at  hand  it  seemed  to  be  alive  and  in  motion  as  the 
waters  trickling  over  it  were  reflected  in  their  shimmering 
opalescence.  An  inscription,  still  legible  on  the  site  of 
Hierapolis,  thus  apostrophizes  the  famous  city, 

Hail,  fairest  soil  in  all  broad  Asia's  realm; 
Hail,  golden  city,  nymph  divine,  bedeck'd 
With  flowing  rills,  thy  jewels. 

Hierapolis  was  a  pleasure  resort  and  a  health  resort,  a 
holy  city  and  a  healing  city,  with  magnificent  temples  and 
tombs.  It  was  frequented  by  the  wealthy.  It  claimed  to 
cure  all  diseases.  It  was  a  center  of  worship.  It  was  called 
the  Sacred  City;  and  a  lame  slave  was  growing  into  man- 
hood in  it  when  the  gospel  of  Christ  first  was  preached 
there,  whose  fame  would  increase  that  of  the  famous  city  as 
it  came  to  be  known  as  the  birthplace  of  Epictetus,  the  great- 
est of  all  the  heathen  moralists,  the  one  whose  lofty  spirit 
and  exalted  ethics  most  nearly  approach  that  of  Christianity 
itself.  Tradition  said  that  the  evangelist  Philip  and  his 
daughters  made  their  home  in  Hierapolis  for  a  considerable 
period,  and  Epictetus  may  have  come  into  contact  with  them 
there.  Papias  was  bishop  of  the  Christian  Church  in  Hier- 
apolis in  the  second  century.  The  Lycus  river  still  flows 
through  the  valley ;  but  Laodicea  is  only  a  pile  of  ruins  to- 

2  Lightfoot,  Colossians,  p.  10. 


354  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

day.  The  famous  cliff  of  Hierapolis  still  stands  in  its 
unique  beauty,  but  Hierapolis  long  has  ceased  to  be  an  abode 
of  men. 

3.  Colossae  never  had  either  the  population  or  the  fame  of 
these  other  cities.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  deserved  to  be  called 
a  city  at  this  time.  It  was  situated  farther  to  the  east,  some 
ten  or  eleven  miles  up  the  valley  from  Laodicea  and  thirteen 
miles  from  Hierapolis.  It  seems  to  have  been  simply  a 
country  village,  where  the  people  had  little  or  nothing  to  do 
but  to  talk  and  to  speculate  and  to  develop  unprofitable  and 
heretical  doctrines.  It  surely  is  the  least  important  place  to 
which  any  of  Paul's  letters  were  written.  The  valley  of  the 
Lycus  was  about  forty  miles  in  length.  Hierapolis  was  some 
six  miles  north  of  Laodicea.  Colossae  was  only  ten  miles 
east  of  Laodicea.  An  itinerant  preacher  easily  could  visit 
the  three  cities  in  a  single  day.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  Written,  not  to  the  metropolis 
of  the  valley  and  not  to  the  sacred  city,  but  to  the  little 
village  beyond  them,  where  some  of  Paul's  personal  friends 
happened  to  be  living. 

II.  The  Population  of  the  Lycus  Valley 

The  valley  lay  in  the  midst  of  a  mountainous  and  volcanic 
region,  and  it  was  visited  again  and  again  with  earthquakes. 
The  people  were  like  their  environment,  volcanic  in  nature 
and  given  to  upheavals.  In  the  second  century  B.  C.  the 
population  was  seething  with  revolution  and  Antiochus  the 
Great  imported  two  thousand  families  of  Jews  from  Baby- 
lon and  settled  them  in  Lydia  and  Phrygia  in  the  hope  that 
they  would  introduce  and  maintain  an  element  of  stability. 
Cybele,  the  great  mother  of  the  gods,  had  the  principal  seat 
of  her  worship  at  Hierapolis;  and  the  whole  district  was 
filled  with  her  fanatical  and  fantastic  worshipers.  Her  rit- 
ual was  of  the  wildest  and  most  excitable  sort,  and  the 
people  were  used  to  mysteries  and  mummeries,  extravagant 
orgies,  and  many  gross  superstitions.    The  paganism  of  this 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       355 

region  was  notoriously  cruel,  excitable,  and  impure.  The 
extravagances  of  Montanism  found  a  congenial  home  here 
in  the  second  century.  The  Council  of  Laodicea  forbade  the 
worship  of  angels  in  the  Christian  churches  in  this  region  in 
the  fourth  century.  In  the  Middle  Ages  we  hear  that  the 
archangel  Michael  was  worshiped  in  this  vicinity.  The 
people  still  were  superstitious  and  unstable. 

III.  Paul  and  the  Churches  of  the  Lycus  Valley 

Paul  never  had  visited  this  valley.  He  writes  to  the 
Christians  of  Colossae  and  of  Laodicea  as  to  those  who  had 
not  seen  his  face  in  the  flesh.3  The  Epistle  to  the  Colos- 
sians  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  are  the  two  Pauline 
epistles  addressed  to  churches  which  Paul  himself  had  not 
directly  founded.  Indirectly  he  may  have  been  the  founder 
of  both.  Surely,  a  large  percentage  of  the  membership  at 
Rome  had  been  recruited  from  the  converts  made  in  the 
Pauline  mission  field,  and  the  church  at  Colossi  seems  to 
have  been  under  the  direction  of  a  Pauline  convert,  whose 
name  was  Epaphras.  Paul  seems  to  recognize  him  as  his 
personal  representative,  for  he  says  that  Epaphras  was  a 
faithful  minister  of  Christ  on  his  behalf.4  Epaphras  was  an 
itinerant  preacher  who  traveled  a  circuit,  for  Paul  says  that 
he  labored  much  for  his  own  people  at  Colossi  and  also  for 
those  at  Laodicea  and  for  those  in  Hierapolis.5  There  were 
close  political  and  commercial  relations  between  Ephesus 
and  the  cities  of  the  Lycus  valley,  and  Epaphras  probably 
had  met  Paul  at  Ephesus  just  as  Philemon  had,  and  these 
two  men  had  carried  the  new  gospel  back  to  Colossae,  and 
Philemon  had  opened  his  home  for  the  public  services  of 
the  Christian  community  formed  there,  and  Epaphras  had 
become  their  official  evangelist  and  leader. 


3  Col.  2.  1. 
*  Col.  1.  7. 
6  Col.  4.  12,  13. 


356  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Now  that  Paul  was  in  prison  at  Rome,  all  responsibility 
for  the  administration  of  the  church  rested  upon  the  heart 
of  Epaphras,  and  certain  developments  had  taken  place 
which  were  puzzling  to  him,  and  he  seems  to  have  decided 
finally  that  it  would  be  worth  while  to  make  the  long  journey 
to  Rome  that  he  might  lay  the  whole  case  before  Paul  and 
ask  for  his  advice.  Paul  heard  his  story  and  wrote  this 
epistle  to  correct  the  errors  in  conduct  and  faith  which  had 
sprung  up  in  the  Colossian  church ;  for  if  he  himself  had  not 
founded  it,  he  felt  indirectly  responsible  for  it,  since  it  had 
been  founded  by  his  converts.  The  exact  date  of  the  writ- 
ing of  the  epistle  we  do  not  know;  but  it  must  have  been 
some  time  after  the  beginning  of  the  Roman  imprisonment. 
Epaphras  must  have  heard  that  Paul  was  accessible  to  his 
friends,  and  we  must  reckon  the  time  needed  for  his  journey 
after  that.  Onesimus  had  been  converted  and  had  had  time 
to  prove  the  genuineness  of  his  experience  and  his  service- 
ableness  to  Paul  after  his  conversion.  We  would  be  inclined, 
therefore,  to  think  that  it  must  have  been  about  the  middle 
of  that  Roman  imprisonment  of  two  years  mentioned  in 
Acts  28.  30  that  the  prison  trilogy  of  epistles  was  written, 
at  some  time  in  the  years  A.  D.  62  or  63. 

IV.  The  Colossian  Heresies 

At  Hierapolis  there  were  healing  springs  the  fame  of 
whose  curative  powers  brought  invalids  from  far  and  wid,e. 
In  the  near  neighborhood  at  the  base  of  the  hills,  there  was 
also  a  spring  the  fumes  from  which  killed  both  men  and 
beasts.  To  the  Christians  it  seemed  like  the  smoking  mouth 
of  hell.  The  waters  of  all  this  district  were  boiling  and 
seething,  and  filled  with  many  strange  ingredients.  Some 
of  the  Christian  religion  at  Colossae  was  beginning  to  exhibit 
something  of  the  same  phenomena.  Seemingly  contradic- 
tory elements  were  held  in  solution.  The  pure  water  of  the 
river  of  life  flowing  from  the  throne  and  for  the  healing  of 
the  nations  was  being  polluted  by  some   foul  admixtures 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       357 

from  the  subterranean  and  volcanic  depths  of  the  pit.  It 
was  natural  in  such  environment.  We  do  not  know  the 
exact  sources  from  which  these  polluting  streams  had  come. 
We  know  that  in  this  neighborhood  all  sorts  of  faiths  and 
fanaticisms  were  constantly  arising  and  struggling  with  each 
other  in  strange  admixtures  of  antagonism  and  affinity. 
What  we  know  of  the  errors  in  the  Colossian  church  we 
gather  from  allusions  in  Paul's  epistle,  and  these  allusions 
would  lead  us  to  think  that  they  were  Esscnic,  Theosophic, 
and  Gnostic.  They  were  partly  Jewish  and  partly  heathen 
and  partly  Oriental. 

Dean  Manscl  defines  the  incipient  Gnosticism  at  Colossal 
as  follows :  "First,  it  pretended,  under  the  plausible  name 
of  philosophy,  to  be  in  possession  of  a  higher  knowledge  of 
spiritual  things  than  could  be  obtained  through  the  simple 
preaching  of  the  gospel.  Secondly,  it  adopted  the  common 
tenet  of  all  the  Gnostic  sects,  that  of  a  distinction  between 
the  supreme  God  and  the  Demiurgos,  or  creator  of  the 
world.  Thirdly,  by  virtue  of  its  pretended  insight  into  the 
spiritual  world,  it  taught  a  theory  of  its  own  concerning  the 
various  orders  of  the  angels  and  the  worship  to  be  paid  to 
them.  And,  fourthly,  in  connection  with  these  theories,  it 
enjoined  and  adopted  the  practice  of  a  rigid  asceticism, 
extending  and  exaggerating  the  ceremonial  prohibitions  of 
the  Jewish  law,  and  probably  connecting  them  with  the 
philosophical  theory  concerning  the  evil  nature  of  matter."  6 
We  see  at  once  that  these  errors  were  partly  speculative 
and  partly  practical.  They  affected  both  conduct  and  creed. 
Theological  and  philosophical  presuppositions  bore  their 
legitimate  fruit  in  asceticism  and  ritualism  and  intellectual 
exclusiveness  and  pride.  Oriental  mysticism,  Manichean 
dualism,  Essenic  asceticism,  Jewish  ritualism,  Gnostic  affec- 
tation of  humility  with  an  abundance  of  pride  all  seem  to 
have  been  striving  for  a  footing  inside  the  Christian  Church. 


6  Mansel,  Gnostic  Heresies,  p.  53. 


358  PAUL  AND  PUS  EPISTLES 

This  epistle  is  written  to  show  their  utter  incompatibiliy  with 
the  Christian  faith. 

V.  Paul's  Answers  to  These  Heresies 

The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  a  model  of  wisdom  in 
the  method  of  dealing  with  such  matters.  Paul  meets  these 
errors,  "not  by  indignant  controversy,  for  as  yet  they  were 
only  undeveloped ;  nor  by  personal  authority,  for  these 
Christians  were  not  his  converts;  but  by  the  noblest  of  all 
forms  of  controversy,  which  is  the  pure  presentation  of 
counter  truths.  To  a  cumbrous  ritualism  he  opposes  a  spir- 
itual service;  to  inflating  speculations  a  sublime  reality;  to 
hampering  ordinances  a  manly  self-discipline;  to  esoteric 
cxclusiveness  a  universal  gospel ;  to  theological  cliques  an 
equal  brotherhood;  to  barren  systems  a  new  life,  a  new 
impulse,  a  religion  of  the  heart."  7  There  really  is  only 
one  answer  in  this  epistle  to  all  the  Colossian  errors,  and 
that  answer  is  "Christ !"  Godet  says,  "The  central  idea  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  the  perfect  sufficiency  of 
Christ  for  our  salvation."  8 

Notice  how  this  fact  appears  in  the  limitless  aspiration  in 
Paul's  prayers  for  the  Colossians.9  Pie  asks  that  they  may 
be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  God's  will  in  all  spiritual 
wisdom  and  understanding,  to  walk  worthily  of  the  Lord 
unto  all  pleasing,  bearing  fruit  in  every  good  work,  and 
increasing  in  the  knowledge  of  God.  Paul  is  not  straitened 
within  himself  in  these  petitions.  There  is  nothing  mod- 
est in  these  requests.  He  asks  for  all  wisdom  and  all 
pleasing  and  every  good  work,  and  then  and  thus  for  an 
increase  in  the  knowledge  of  God.  How  does  he  dare  to 
make  such  sweeping  demands  of  God  for  them  and  of 
them  for  God?  Because  it  is  their  privilege,  he  says,  to 
be  strengthened   with  all  power — not  a   little  power,   just 

7  Farrar,  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  312. 

8  Godet,  Studies  on  the  Epistles,  p.  185. 

9  Col.  1.  9-1 1. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       359 

enough  to  enable  them  to  be  half-wise  and  half-pleasing 
and  half-fruitful  and  hal f -obedient ;  but  all  power  that 
they  may  need,  all  power  there  is  in  God.  Their  sufficiency 
is  to  be  in  him.  Pie  is  to  make  them  sufficient,  unto 
their  portion  of  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light.1" 
The  only  limit  to  the  power  at  their  command  is  the  might 
of  the  glory  of  the  Unlimited  and  the  Almighty  One.  They 
were  to  be  strengthened  with  Omnipotence  unto  all  patience 
and  long-suffering  with  joy.11  All  wisdom  and  all  pleasing 
and  all  fruit  fulness  and  all  patience  and  all  long-suffering 
and  all  joy  were  made  possible  because  they  were  made 
powerful  with  all  pozccr,  ev  Ttdorf  dwdfiei  6vva\ioviiEvoi. 

Paul  seems  to  be  fond  of  that  word  "all"  when  he  comes 
to  the  description  of  the  majesty  of  his  Christ  and  the  magni- 
tude of  his  work  for  the  universe.  See  how  the  word  recurs 
in  1.  15-20.  There  is  no  better  example  of  the  Pauline  uni-  ; 
versalism  than  these  sentences  afford.  Christ  is  the  first- 
born of  all  creation.  He  is  before  all  things.  In  him  and 
through  him  and  unto  him  all  things  have  been  created.  In 
him  all  things  consist.  There  is  no  limitation  possible  here. 
Christ  is  the  creator  and  sustainer  of  all  things,  without  ex- 
ception. This  is  not  poetry.  It  is  the  statement  of  the  actual 
fact.  Paul  goes  on  to  say  that  Christ  is  the  Head  of  the 
church,  the  beginning,  the  firstborn  from  the  dead,  that  in 
all  things  he  might  have  the  preeminence ;  for  it  was  the 
good  pleasure  of  the  Father  that  in  him  should  all  the  full- 
ness dwell.  No  one  thinks  of  suggesting  any  limitation 
here.  Paul  posits  all  preeminence  for  his  Christ.  He  is 
the  universal  Creator;  he  is  the  universal  Providence;  he 
has  universal  preeminence. 

Then  Paul  goes  on  at  once  to  say  that  it  was  the  Father's 
good  pleasure  through  Christ  to  reconcile  all  things  unto 
himself,  whether  things  upon  the  earth  or  things  in  heaven. 
Who  will  dare  to  file  any  exception  here  ?    Who  will  dare  to 

10  Col.  I.  12,  ™  UavforfavTi  ifidq. 

11  Col.  I.  II. 


36o  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

say  that  the  unlimited  "all,"  seven  times  repeated  in  this 
passage,  suddenly  becomes  a  limited  "all"  in  the  eighth  and 
final  occurrence  of  it?  Has  Paul  heen  working  up  to  an 
anticlimax  all  this  time?  Have  his  universals  suddenly 
shrunk  so  as  to  eover  only  the  handful  of  the  elect  or  the 
small  minority  of  believers  in  the  present  day?  Paul  would 
laugh  to  seorn  any  such  suggestion.  What  he  says  and  what 
he  believes  is  that  the  reconciling  power  of  Christ  reaches 
as  far  as  his  creative  power  has  gone.  It  is  no  poetry.  It  is 
the  statement  of  the  fact.  It  is  a  climax  of  thought,  repre- 
senting the  climax  of  Paul's  faith.  The  universe  was  created 
by  Christ ;  the  universe  is  upheld  by  Christ ;  the  universe  has 
been  reconciled  through  Christ.  "Through  him  all  things 
were  reconciled,  whether  things  upon  the  earth,  or  things 
in  the  heavens." 

Here  is  a  gospel  for  all  creation  under  heaven.  Here  is 
a  gospel  for  the  universe.  R.  H.  Charles  sums  up  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  Pauline  eschatology  as  follows:  "Since  all 
things,  in  heaven  and  earth,  visible  and  invisible,  whether 
thrones  or  dominions  or  principalities  or  powers,  were  cre- 
ated by  Christ  (Col.  i.  16),  and,  according  to  the  same  pas- 
sage, were  to  find  their  consummation  in  him,  they  must, 
therefore,  come  within  the  sphere  of  his  mediatorial  activ- 
ity; they  must  ultimately  be  summed  up  in  Christ  as  their 
Head  (Eph.  I.  10).  Hence,  since  in  the  world  of  spiritual 
beings  some  have  sinned  or  apostatized,  they  too  must  share 
in  the  atonement  of  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  so  obtain  recon- 
ciliation (Col.  i.  19,  20),  and,  having  been  reconciled,  they 
should  join  in  the  universal  worship  of  the  Son  (Phil.  2.  10). 
Since  all  things  must  be  reconciled  and  summed  up  in  Christ, 
there  can  be  no  room  finally  in  the  universe  for  a  wicked 
being,  whether  human  or  angelic."  12 

The  all-sufficiency  of  Christ !  that  is  Paul's  gospel.  He  is 
able  to  meet  the  needs  of  any  man.    He  is  able  to  meet  the 


12  Charles,  Eschatology,  pp.  404,  405. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       361 

needs  of  the  universe.  "We  proelaim  this  Christ,"  says 
Paul,  "admonishing  every  man  and  teaching  every  man  in 
all  wisdom,  that  we  may  present  every  man  perfect  in 
Christ."  13  We  note  the  three  occurrences  of  the  phrase 
"every  man."  At  this  point,  again,  there  is  no  limitation 
to  Paul's  aspiration.  He  has  a  gospel  for  every  man,  a 
gospel  able  to  make  every  man  perfect  in  Christ.  It  is  one 
of  the  greatest  sayings  in  the  epistles.  Paul  indicates  in  it 
the  Message  of  his  gospel,  the  Methods  of  his  ministry,  and 
the  Mark  at  which  he  aimed ;  the  Proclamation  and  the 
Practice  and  the  Purpose  of  his  preaching;  the  Person  he 
presented,  his  threefold  Plan  of  procedure,  and  the  predeter- 
mined Purport  of  his  effort. 

He  proclaimed  "Christ,"  not  any  system  of  theology,  not 
any  theory  of  salvation,  but  primarily  and  preeminently 
"Christ."  His  message  was  concerning  a  person  first  of 
all.  Creeds  might  come  in  their  due  order ;  but  his  first  busi- 
ness was  to  present  the  facts  concerning  the  personal  Christ. 
He  preached  and  he  admonished  and  he  taught.  In  this 
threefold  method  the  claims  of  Christ  were  presented. 
Paul's  ministry  was  one  of  preaching  and  exhortation  and 
education.  To  be  that  it  had  to  be  both  public  and  private ; 
and  it  aimed  at  perfection.  He  wished  to  present  every  man 
"perfect  in  Christ."  It  was  no  small  task  which  he  had 
undertaken  in  the  name  of  his  Lord.  Paul  has  told  these 
Colossians  in  the  preceding  context  that  Jesus  died  "to  pre- 
sent you  holy  and  without  blemish  and  unreprovable  before 
him."  14  Paul  tells  the  Colossians  now  that  his  aim  and 
work  is  like  that  of  his  Master,  "to  present  every  man  per- 
fect in  Christ." 

What  is  it  to  be  perfect  in  Christ?  It  is  to  be  "holy  and 
without  blemish  and  unreproveable  before  him."  First  of 
all,  it  is  to  be  whole,  not  crippled,  not  injured,  complete  in 
every  part  and  in  full  possession  of  all  one's  powers.    Then, 

13  Col.  1.  28. 
"Col   1.  22. 


362  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

it  is  to  be  without  blemish,  sound  throughout,  with  no  cor- 
ruption at  any  spot.  Finally,  it  is  to  have  reached  the  end 
set  before  man  in  his  creation,  it  is  to  be  what  God  would 
have  man  to  be — thoroughly  devoted  and  thoroughly  service- 
able to  him,  well-pleasing  and  unreproved.  When  every 
minister  and  every  missionary  and  every  Christian  gets  this 
Pauline  vision  of  the  task  set  before  us  and  of  the  glorious 
goal  promised  and  guaranteed  in  our  Christ  for  every  man 
and  for  the  race,  we  may  expect  some  measure  of  the 
renewal  of  the  Pauline  energy  and  zeal  in  our  evangelism 
and  some  measure  of  the  Pauline  success. 

"The  Christian  aim,  for  which  the  preaching  of  Christ 
supplies  ample  power,  is  to  make  the  whole  race  possess,  in 
fullest  development,  the  whole  circle  of  possible  human 
excellences." 15  Such  language  would  seem  extravagant 
were  it  not  that  the  New  Testament  is  full  of  such  state- 
ments, and  were  it  not  that  the  whole  of  its  revelation  is 
based  upon  the  fact  that  Christ  is  all-sufficient  for  all  such 
things.  Paul  believed  it  and  in  that  belief  we  find  the 
explanation  of  the  ceaseless  sacrifice  of  his  career.  Hav- 
ing made  it  the  aim  of  his  ministry  to  present  every  man 
perfect  in  Christ,  he  had  doomed  himself  to  more  than  penal 
labor.  He  had  pledged  himself  to  a  work  which  would 
demand  all  of  his  energies  as  long  as  he  lived.  If  he  had  not 
believed  that  the  reward  would  be  worth  the  sacrifice,  his 
life  would  have  been  a  hard  one  indeed.  He  believed  that 
the  harvest  would  be  worth  more  than  its  weight  in  gold. 
Christ  all-sufficient!  every  man  perfect!  that  was  a  gospel 
worth  preaching.  To  proclaim  that  gospel  was  worth  a 
man's  life,  either  in  sacrifice  or  in  martyrdom. 

Christ  all-sufficient!  that  was  the  one  answer  Paul  had 
to  make  to  all  these  errorists. 

Let  us  see  now  that  this  is  true,  as  we  look  at  the  epistle 
in  more  detail. 


15  Maclarcn,  Commentary  on  Colossians,  p.  145. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       363 

1.  Were  there  those  who  were  positing  a  long  series  of 
emanations  between  mankind  and  the  Deity?  In  professed 
humility  were  they  preaching  that  only  through  an  elaborate 
system  of  mediation  could  man  approach  the  Most  High? 
Were  they  teaching  the  existence  of  multiplied  spiritual  hier- 
archies, many  ranks  and  orders  of  angels  coming  between 
the  soul  and  God?  Paul  answers  to  all  of  this  theosophical 
speculation :  "There  is  one  mediator,  Christ !  He  is  the  abso- 
lute and  universal  mediator.  We  have  no  need  of  any  other 
mediators  beyond  him.  He  created  the  universe.16  It  is  not 
the  work  of  any  Demiurge;  it  is  the  work  of  Christ.  He 
upholds  and  maintains  the  universe.17  He  has  no  need  of 
any  assistants  in  that  field.  He  is  the  Head  of  the  church 
and  the  one  all-sufficient  Mediator  there.18  He  alone  recon- 
ciles God  and  man.  He  alone  reconciles  God  and  all 
things.19  We  need  not  fear  the  Majesty  of  the  Most  High 
as  long  as  we  have  the  Mediator,  Christ.  He  hath  blotted 
out  the  bond  written  in  ordinances  which  was  against  us : 
and  he  hath  taken  it  out  of  the  way,  nailing  it  to  the  cross."  20 

This  hath  he  done,  and  shall  we  not  adore  him? 

This  shall  he  do,  and  can  we  still  despair? 
Come  let  us  quickly  fling  ourselves  before  him, 

Cast  at  his  feet  the  burthen  of  our  care. 

Flash  from  our  eyes  the  glow  of  our  thanksgiving, 

Glad  and  regretful,  confident  and  calm, 
Then  thro'  all  life  and  what  is  after  living 

Thrill  to  the  tireless  music  of  a  psalm. 

Yea  thro'  life,  death,  thro'  sorrow  and  thro'  sinning 

He  shall  suffice  me,  for  he  hath  sufficed: 
Christ  is  the  end,  for  Christ  was  the  beginning, 

Christ  the  beginning,  for  the  end  is  Christ.21 

Martin  Luther  caught  the  very  spirit  of  Paul  when  he  said 


"Col.  1.  16.  19Col.  1.  20. 

"Col.  1.  17.  2°  Col.  2.  14. 

18  Col.  1.  18.  21  Myers,  Sain'  Paul,  pp.  52,  53. 


364  PAUL  AND  HIS  EriSTLES 

in  his  Table  Talk,  "See  to  it  that  thou  know  no  God,  and 
pay  homage  to  no  God,  exeept  the  Man  Christ  Jesus ;  but  lay 
hold  of  him  alone,  and  continue  hanging  with  thy  whole 
heart  upon  him,  and  let  all  thoughts  and  speculations  about 
the  Majesty  go  their  way.  In  this  business  look  straight  at 
the  Man  alone,  who  presents  himself  to  us  as  Mediator,  and 
says,  'Come  to  me  all  ye  that  are  weary  and  heavy  laden.'  " 
The  one  sufficient  answer  to  all  the  Gnostic  emanations  and 
multiplied  mediators  is,  that  we  have  one  sufficient  Mediator, 
Christ. 

2.  Were  there  those  who  were  saying  that  matter  was 
inherently  evil  and  that  the  body  therefore  was  vile?  The 
one  sufficient  answer  to  all  such  Manichean  dualism  was  the 
incarnation  of  Christ.  The  body  as  such  could  not  be  vile 
because  Christ  was  incarnate.  In  the  body  of  his  flesh  he 
wrought  our  reconciliation  and  made  it  possible  for  us  to 
be  holy  and  without  blemish  and  unreprovable  before  him  in 
faith.22  In  the  body  of  his  flesh  all  matter  was  redeemed, 
and  even  the  body  of  our  humiliation  is  no  longer  a  vile  body 
but  a  body  which  is  to  be  conformed  to  the  body  of  his 
glory,  according  to  the  working  whereby  he  is  able  to  sub- 
ject all  things  to  himself.23  Incipient  Gnosticism  and  full- 
fledged  Manicheanism  alike  are  fully  answered  in  Christ. 

3.  Were  there  those  who  were  declaring  the  necessity 
of  ascetic  practices,  as  a  means  to  the  mortification  of  the 
flesh  ?  Holiness  is  not  to  be  attained  by  hard  discipline.  The 
flesh  is  not  crucified  by  abstinence  from  certain  kinds  of 
food  or  by  scourgings  and  ill  treatment.  Any  harsh  treat- 
ment of  his  own  body  is  consistent  with  unrestrained  self- 
ishness in  the  devotee.  Exceptional  saintliness  seldom  is 
found  among  the  ascetics,  and  when  it  is  found  in  any  one 
of  them  it  is  the  fruit  of  the  crucifixion  of  the  spirit  and  not 
of  the  castigation  of  the  flesh.  A  man  may  wear  a  hairshirt 
and  be  a  hypocrite.     A  man  may  scourge  his  back  every 

22  Col.  1.  22. 

23  Phil.  3.  2  J, 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       365 

day  and  hide  seven  devils  in  his  heart  all  the  time.  A  man's 
food  does  not  determine  his  character.  If  it  is  wholesome, 
it  is  good  for  his  physical  life,  and  the  physical  life  may 
have  its  influence  upon  the  mental  and  the  spiritual  life; 
but  of  itself  neither  the  taking  of  food  nor  the  abstinence 
from  food  will  insure  sainthood.  Character  does  not  depend 
upon  matter.  It  does  not  matter  what  a  man  eats  or  drinks 
if  he  eat  and  drink  to  the  glory  of  God.  Asceticism  never 
saves. 

"It  is  easier  to  travel  the  whole  distance  from  Cape  Com- 
orin  to  the  shrine  of  Juggernaut,  measuring  every  foot  of  it 
by  the  body  laid  prostrate  in  the  dust,  than  to  surrender  the 
heart  to  the  love  of  God.  ...  It  is  strange,  and  yet  not 
strange,  that  people  should  think  that,  somehow  or  other, 
they  recommend  themselves  to  God  by  making  themselves 
uncomfortable,  but  so  it  is  that  religion  presents  itself  to 
many  minds  mainly  as  a  system  of  restrictions  and  injunc- 
tions which  forbids  the  agreeable  and  commands  the  un- 
pleasant. So  does  our  poor  human  nature  vulgarize  and 
travesty  Christ's  solemn  command  to  deny  ourselves  and 
take  up  our  cross  after  him."  24  Paul  says  that  these  things 
are  not  of  any  value  against  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh.25 
There  is  only  one  man  who  is  assured  of  constant  victory 
over  the  world  and  the  flesh  and  the  devil  and  that  is  the 
man  who  has  put  away  all  that  is  evil  and  has  put  on  all  that 
is  good,  the  one  who  has  become  a  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus, 
the  one  to  whom  Christ  is  all  in  all,26  the  one  in  whose 
heart  the  peace  of  Christ  has  come  to  rule,27  the  one  in  whose 
heart  and  mind  the  word  of  Christ  dwells  richly,28  the  one 
who  does  all  in  word  and  deed  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.29  This  man  will  be  perfect,  and  he  will  have  perfect 
victory  over  his  own  body,  because  as  an  individual  member 
of  the  church  which  is  the  body  of  Christ  he  will  give  Christ 


M  Maclaren,  op.  cit.,  p.  254.  n  Col.  3.  15. 

«  Col.  2.  23.  *»  Col.  3.  16. 

26  Col.  2.  5-11.  29Col.  3.  17. 


366  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  preeminence  in  all  things.30  This  is  Paul's  answer  to 
the  ascetics:  "Christ  is  sufficient  to  save.  Severity  to  the 
body  has  no  value.  The  only  sufficient  power  to  live  the 
Christian  life  is  to  be  found  in  Christ." 

4.  Were  there  those  who  were  advocating  an  elaborate 
ritual,  the  observance  of  meats  and  drinks  and  feast  days 
and  new  moons  and  the  Sabbath  day?  These  are  all  ele- 
ments and  rudiments  and  the  ordinances  of  men.  The 
higher  life  cannot  be  dependent  upon  such  things.  Chris- 
tians are  not  made  by  ceremonies.  Rites  do  not  make  right- 
eous. They  may  have  a  show  of  wisdom.31  They  may  claim 
that  they  are  aids  to  the  spiritual  life;  they  may  set  out  to 
help  the  soul  in  its  approach  to  God ;  they  may  claim  to  be 
symbols  of  great  realities ;  they  may  gratify  the  senses ;  they 
may  satisfy  the  aesthetic  taste.  Spiritual  worship  is  superior 
to  all  of  these  things.  The  man  who  has  died  with  Christ 
is  no  longer  subject  to  them.  The  man  who  has  risen  with 
Christ  has  set  his  mind  on  things  above  them.32  It  is  too 
true,  as  all  history  goes  to  show,  that  "enlisting  the  senses 
as  the  allies  of  the  spirit  in  worship  is  risky  work.  They 
are  very  apt  to  fight  for  their  own  hand  when  they  once 
begin,  and  the  history  of  all  symbolic  and  ceremonial  wor- 
ship shows  that  the  experiment  is  much  more  likely  to  end 
in  sensualizing  religion  than  in  spiritualizing  sense.  .  .  . 
All  ceremonial  is  in  danger  of  becoming  opaque  instead  of 
transparent,  as  it  was  meant  to  be,  and  of  detaining  mind 
and  eye  instead  of  letting  them  pass  on  and  up  to  God. 
Stained  glass  is  lovely,  and  white  windows  are  barnlike  and 
starved  and  bare;  but  perhaps,  if  the  object  is  to  get  light 
and  to  see  the  sun,  these  solemn  purples  and  glowing  yellows 
are  rather  in  the  way.  .  .  .  Anyway,  Paul's  great  principle 
here  is  that  a  Christianity  making  much  of  forms  and  cere- 
monies is  a  distinct  retrogression  and  descent.    You  are  men 

a"  Col.  1.  18. 
31  Col.  2.  23. 
82  Col.  3.  2. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       367 

in  Christ ;  do  not  go  back  to  the  picture  book  A  B  C  of 
symbol  and  ceremony,  which  was  fit  for  babes.  You  have 
been  brought  into  the  inner  sanctuary  of  worship  in  spirit ; 
do  not  decline  to  the  beggarly  elements  of  outward  form."  33 

What  is  the  safeguard  against  all  this?  It  is  the  life 
in  Christ.  It  is  Christ  in  the  life  of  the  believer.  Walk  in 
him,  and  there  will  be  a  new  consciousness  of  superiority  to 
all  sensual  appeals  in  rites  and  ceremonies.  Here  were  two 
foes  to  the  Christianity  in  Colossae.  One  was  speculative 
and  the  other  practical.  One  appealed  to  the  pride  of  intel- 
lect and  the  other  to  the  pleasure  of  the  senses.  One  would 
resolve  Christianity  into  theological  speculations  and  capture 
the  Oriental  philosophies ;  the  other  would  resolve  Chris- 
tianity into  pageants  and  performances  and  capture  with  it 
the  plain  peoples  who  delighted  in  parade  and  show.  To  the 
cultured  theosophists,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  ascetics 
and  the  ritualists,  on  the  other  hand,  Paul  has  the  one  answer 
to  make :  "Christ  relieves  us  of  all  need  of  your  paltry  pan- 
aceas. In  Christ  there  is  the  Pleroma  of  the  Godhead,34 
and  in  Christ  we  have  the  Pleroma  of  power  and  of  purity 
and  of  peace  and  of  salvation.35  Christ  is  all  and  in  all,36 
and  in  Christ  we  are  superior  to  all  pagan  philosophizing 
and  all  Essenic  asceticism  and  all  Jewish  or  pagan  ritualism 
in  worship." 

5.  Evidently,  all  of  the  tendencies  we  have  been  consid- 
ering would  lead  directly  to  esoteric  circles  in  the  Christian 
Church  and  to  the  fostering  of  a  spiritual  pride  and  an 
inclination  to  exclusiveness  on  the  part  of  those  who  be- 
longed to  them.  The  theosophists  would  substitute  for  the 
old  distinctions  of  race  a  new  distinction  of  intellectual 
aristocracy.  They  would  form  a  Brahman  caste  in  the 
Christian  Church.  The  ascetics  and  the  ritualists  probably 
would  not  deny  that  those  who  did  not  follow  them  into 
their  extremes  of  discipline  and  ceremony  were  Christians, 

33  Maclaren,  op.  cit.,  pp.  192-3-  35  Co1-  2-  IO- 

84  col.  2.  9.  "Col.  3.  II. 


368  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

but  they  surely  would  hold  that  they  were  Christians  of  an 
inferior  sort.  The  very  fact  that  they  themselves  submitted 
to  these  things  showed  their  belief  that  there  was  a  superior 
virtue  in  them.  Now,  against  all  of  this  tendency  to  the 
formation  of  a  spiritual  aristocracy  in  the  Christian  Church 
Paul  sets  forth  in  this  epistle  the  great  and  inevitable  fact 
of  a  spiritual  democracy  in  Christ.  He  says :  "We  pro- 
claim Christ,  admonishing  every  man  (not  any  little  group 
of  cultured  souls  alone),  and  teaching  every  man  (not  any 
esoteric  circles  of  congenial  spirits  alone),  in  all  wisdom 
(which  is  to  be  shared  by  all  alike  and  not  to  be  the  property 
of  any  intellectual  aristocracy  alone),  that  we  may  present 
every  man  perfect  in  Christ37  (so  that  the  Christian  Church 
will  be  the  long  sought  and  only  possible  universal  democ- 
racy). In  this  Christian  Church  there  cannot  be  Greek  and 
Jew,  circumcision  and  uncircumcision,  barbarian,  Scythian, 
bondman,  freeman ;  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all."  38 

Many  of  the  commentators  think  that  the  word  reXeiov, 
perfect,  in  this  passage  means  "fully  initiated."  It  is  a 
word  used  in  the  Greek  mysteries,  and  it  was  applied  to 
those  who  had  passed  through  all  the  lower  stages  and  had 
been  admitted  to  the  innermost  circle  of  the  enlightened. 
Only  a  favored  few  attained  to  this  final  degree,  and  they 
were  an  esoteric  aristocracy.  Most  of  their  disciples  were 
kept  in  stages  of  imperfect  development.  It  is  suggested 
that  Paul  here  is  making  a  protest  against  all  this  exclusive- 
ness  and  mystery,  and  he  says  that  in  the  Christian  faith  it 
is  his  aim  to  admonish  every  man  and  to  teach  every  man 
in  all  wisdom,  that  he  might  present  every  man  fully  initiated 
in  Christ.  It  may  be  that  the  Christian  democracy  in 
which  every  man  was  perfect  in  his  own  measure  and 
degree  here  is  set  in  contrast  with  the  select  circles 
of  the  mystagogues,  and  it  may  not.  We  are  certain, 
however,  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  meaning  which  Paul 

"Col.  i.  28. 
38  Col.  3.  11. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       369 

always  put  into  these  terms  in  his  other  epistles.  The 
Colossians  were  to  be  perfect  in  Christ.39  They  were 
to  walk  in  Christ.40  They  were  to  be  complete  in  Christ,41 
"pleromated,  made  full"  in  him.  The  Pleroma  which  dwelt 
in  him  was  to  dwell  in  them,  and  they  were  to  dwell  in 
Christ. 

It  is  very  noticeable  that  in  the  address  in  1.  2  the  Colos- 
sians are  located  twice.  They  are  said  to  be  the  saints  and 
faithful  brethren,  iv  KoXoooalg,  in  Colossae,  and  in  the  same 
sentence  they  are  said  to  be  the  saints  and  faithful  brethren, 
ev  Xptdro),  in  Christ.  They  were  in  Colossae  and  they  were 
in  Christ.  They  were  in  Christ  just  as  surely  as  they  were 
in  Colossae.  They  had  their  residence  in  Colossae  and  they 
walked  about  in  Colossae  in  the  pursuit  of  their  business 
day  by  day ;  and  they  had  received  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Lord, 
and  they  walked  in  him  as  they  went  about  their  business 
day  by  day.  Colossae  was  not  a  very  congenial  environment. 
The  heathenism  round  about  them  would  not  be  sympathetic 
with  the  adherents  of  the  new  faith.  Day  by  day  they  would 
need  to  face  much  that  was  disagreeable  and  unpleasant  in 
all  their  relationships  with  Colossae;  but  day  by  day  they 
would  have  much  comfort  and  all  needed  strengthening  in 
Christ.  Matthew  Arnold  wrote  about  a  minister  in  the  slums 
of  the  East  End  of  London : 

'Twas  August,  and  the  fierce  sun  overhead 

Smote  on  the  squalid  streets  of  Bethnal  Green, 
And  the  pale  weaver,  through  his  windows  seen 

In  Spitalfields,  look'd  thrice  dispirited. 

I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said; 

"111  and  o'erworked  how  fare  you  in  this  scene?" — 
"Bravely!"  said  he;  "for  I  of  late  have  been 

Much  cheer' d  with  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  bread." 

That  has  something  of  the  spirit  of  Paul  in  the  use  of  this, 
his  characteristic  phrase. 

39  Col.  1.  28.  m  Col.  2.  6.  41  Col.  2.  10. 


370  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

It  has  been  said  that  all  of  Paul's  theology  could  be 
summed  up  in  those  two  words,  "In  Christ."  In  the  first 
sentence  in  the  companion  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  Paul 
says  that  Christians  have  been  blessed  with  every  spiritual 
blessing  in  the  heavenly  places  in  Christ,42  that  God  chose 
us  in  Christ  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,13  that  the 
grace  of  God  is  freely  bestowed  upon  us  in  Christ,4*  that 
in  Christ  we  have  our  redemption,45  that  the  good  pleasure 
of  God  was  purposed  in  Christ,40  that  that  good  pleasure 
was  to  sum  up  all  things  in  Christ,47  that  in  Christ  we  were 
made  a  heritage,48  that  in  Christ  we  have  hoped,49  and  that 
in  Christ  we  were  sealed  with  the  Spirit  of  promise.50  It 
is  all  in  Christ.  Eleven  times  the  phrases  are  repeated  in 
that  one  sentence.  It  does  seem  that  all  of  the  Pauline 
theology  might  be  found  in  those  two  words.  Paul  thinks 
that  we  owe  everything  to  Christ,  and  that  we  have  every- 
thing in  Christ.  The  one  answer  to  all  these  wrong  theories 
and  practices  in  Colossse  is,  Christ ! 

VI.  The  Christological  Epistle 

This  is  preeminently  the  Christological  epistle.  "It  is 
the  epistle  which  more  fully  and  clearly  than  any  other  sets 
forth  the  supreme  divinity  of  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  the  epistle 
which  more  decisively  than  any  other  lays  down  for  us  the 
rule  that  it  is  by  union  with  Christ,  not  by  ceremonial  ob- 
servances or  self-mortifying  practices,  that  we  can  win  the 
victory  over  the  sinful  impulses  of  our  lower  nature."  51 
It  is  the  epistle  which  declares  most  definitely  that  in  Christ 
all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  dwelt  bodily,  and  that  all 
this  indwelling  fullness  of  God  is  to  be  appropriated  by  us 


42Eph.  i.  3.  "Eph.  1.  10. 

«Eph.  1.  4.  «Eph.  1.  11. 

"Eph.  1.  6.  <9Eph.  I.  12. 

«Eph.  1.  7.  ^Eph.  I.  13. 

«  Eph.  1.9.  w  Farrar,  Messages  of  the  Books,  p.  322. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIAXS 


o/ 


in  him.  He  is  the  "brimmed  receptacle  and  the  total  con- 
tents" 52  of  the  essential  attributes  of  God  and  of  all  the 
gifts  and  graces  of  the  Christian.  It  would  be  interesting  to 
go  through  the  epistle  and  collect  all  the  items  of  its  testi- 
mony to  the  supremacy  and  the  sufficiency  of  Christ.  We 
suggest  only  a  few  of  them. 

We  have  our  redemption,  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins,  in 
him.53  He  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God.54  All  things 
have  been  created  in  him  and  through  him  and  unto  him.55 
Pascal  once  said :  "Jesus  Christ  is  the  goal  of  all,  and  the 
center  to  which  all  leads.  Who  knows  him  knows  the  reason 
of  all  things."  Paul  here  declares  that  he  is  the  Author 
and  the  End  of  creation,  the  Creative  Agent  and  the  Final 
Cause  of  the  universe.  In  him  all  things  consist.56  He 
maintains  universal  existence.  Without  him  there  would  be 
disintegration  and  chaos  come  again.  He  is  the  first-born 
from  the  dead.57  He  is  the  Head  of  the  Church.57  He  has 
the  preeminence  in  all  things.57  He  is  the  universal  Medi- 
ator, through  whom  alone  peace  and  reconciliation  have 
come.58  He  is  in  us,  the  hope  of  glory.59  He  is  the  explan- 
ation and  the  consummation  of  all  the  mysterious  dispensa- 
tions of  God.60  In  him  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  are  hidden.61 

All  of  our  wisdom,  then,  should  be  found  in  him.  We 
have  no  need  to  go  searching  into  the  pagan  philosophies 
and  theosophies  for  any  superior  wisdom  or  knowledge  they 
may  have.  Christianity  was  superior  to  the  Gnosticism  and 
the  Manicheanism  of  Paul's  day,  as  it  is  superior  to  the 
occult  Hindu  theosophies  of  to-day.  No  one  need  turn  to 
them  for  enlightenment  or  comfort  until  he  has  exhausted 
all  the  fullness  of  wisdom  hidden  in  Christ.     All  wisdom 


52  Ibid.,  p.  313.  «  Col.  1.  18. 

"Col.  1.  14.  "Col.  1.  20. 

M  Col.  1.  15.  69  Col.  1.  27. 

55  Col.  1.  16.  60Col.  1.  25-27. 

66  Col.  1.  17.  "Col.  2.  3. 


372  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

is  in  him,  not  a  part  of  it  only,  not  some  single  phase  or 
fragment,  but  the  inexhaustible  fullness  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  is  in  him.  It  may  not  be  apparent  at  first  sight. 
It  is  not  open  to  every  careless  passer-by.  It  is  a  hidden 
treasure.  It  is  to  be  appreciated  only  by  long-continued 
research.  Let  no  man  think  that  he  knows  all  about  it  after 
a  mere  surface  survey.  As  the  miners  dig  and  delve  for  the 
gold,  so  there  must  be  earnest  searching  as  for  hid  treasure 
before  anyone  can  know  the  secret  depths  of  the  truth.  The 
possibility  of  reaching  the  truth  is  open  to  all,  but  it  involves 
labor  on  the  part  of  each.  Superficial  investigation  will 
be  unsatisfactory.  Thorough  research  will  insure  adequate 
reward.  The  riches  of  the  full  assurance  of  understanding 
of  the  mystery  of  God,  even  Christ,  is  not  to  be  obtained  by 
any  cheap  observance  of  external  asceticisms  or  ritualisms 
and  is  not  to  be  imparted  through  the  persuasiveness  of 
any  man's  speech.  It  is  given  by  Christ,  and  by  Christ  alone. 
He  promised  that  his  spirit  would  lead  into  truth,  and  it  is 
a  delusion  to  think  that  truth  can  be  found  anywhere  else. 
The  Christian  is  to  walk  in  Christ,  rooted  and  builded  up 
in  him,  and  established  in  faith  in  him.02  William  Law 
repeats  Paul's  exhortation  here  in  these  words:  "Wherever 
thou  goest,  whatever  thou  doest,  at  home  or  abroad,  in  the 
field  or  at  church,  do  all  in  a  desire  of  union  with  Christ,  in 
imitation  of  his  tempers  and  inclinations,  anil  look  upon 
all  as  nothing  but  that  which  exercises  and  increases  the 
spirit  and  the  life  of  Christ  in  thy  soul.  From  morning  to 
night  keep  Jesus  in  thy  heart,  long  for  nothing,  desire 
nothing,  hope  for  nothing,  but  to  have  all  that  is  within  thee 
changed  into  the  spirit  and  temper  of  the  holy  Jesus.  Let 
this  be  thy  Christianity,  thy  church,  and  thy  religion.  For 
this  new  birth  in  Christ  thus  firmly  believed,  and  continually 
desired,  will  do  everything  that  thou  wantest  to  have  done 
in  thee;  it  will  dry  up  all  the  springs  of  vice,  stop  all  the 

62  Col.  2.  6,  7. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       373 

workings  of  evil  in  thy  nature;  it  will  bring  all  that  is  good 
into  thee ;  it  will  open  all  the  gospel  within  thee,  and  thou 
wilt  know  what  it  is  to  be  taught  of  God.  This  longing 
desire  of  thy  heart  to  be  one  with  Christ  will  soon  put  a 
stop  to  all  the  vanity  of  thy  life,  and  nothing  will  be  admitted 
to  enter  into  thy  heart  or  proceed  from  it  but  what  comes 
from  God  and  returns  to  God ;  thou  wilt  soon  be,  as  it  were, 
tied  and  bound  in  the  chains  of  all  holy  affections  and  de- 
sires ;  thy  mouth  will  have  a  watch  set  upon  it,  thine  ears 
would  willingly  hear  nothing  that  does  not  tend  to  God,  nor 
thine  eyes  be  open  but  to  see  and  find  occasions  for  doing 
good."  63 

John  Wesley  read  William  Law's  books  while  he  was 
seeking  for  victory  in  his  personal  Christian  experience  and 
he  says:  "They  convinced  me  more  than  ever  of  the  exceed- 
ing height  and  depth  and  breadth  of  the  law  of  God.  The 
light  flowed  in  so  mightily  upon  my  soul  that  everything 
appeared  in  a  new  view.  I  cried  to  God  for  help ;  resolved 
as  I  had  never  done  before,  not  to  prolong  the  time  of  obey- 
ing him."  64  There  is  much  of  the  spirit  of  Paul  and  of 
John  in  the  writings  of  William  Law,  and  in  the  extract  we 
have  given  we  have  his  conception  of  what  Paul  meant 
when  he  said,  "Walk  in  Christ !" 

"In  him  dwelleth  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily."  65 
John  said,  "The  Logos  was  with  God  and  was  God  .  .  . 
and  the  Logos  became  flesh."66  This  statement  in  Colos- 
sians  is  the  closest  parallel  in  the  writings  of  Paul,  and, 
indeed,  in  the  entire  New  Testament,  to  these  declarations 
of  John.  It  is  interesting  to  see  that  when  Paul  reaches  his 
highest  heights,  as  in  that  thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Cor- 
inthians and  in  certain  passages  of  these  Epistles  to  the 


63  Law,  Spirit  of  Prayer,  pp.  49,  50. 

64  Wesley,  Works,  iii,  p.  71. 
85  Col.  2.  9. 

66  John  1.  1,  14. 


374  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Colossians  and  the  Ephesians,  he  most  closely  approximates 
the  characteristic  and  continuous  utterances  of  John.  John 
was  the  most  sublime  theologian  and  the  greatest  saint. 
Paul  at  his  best  comes  within  sight  of  the  plane  on  which 
John  continually  lived. 

It  would  be  well  to  remember  also  in  connection  with  this 
passage  that  whatever  Pleroma  Paul  here  posits  of  the 
Christ  he  goes  on  in  the  same  sentence  to  say  is  accessible 
to  us  and  we  are  to  incarnate  it  even  as  he.  "All  the  fullness 
of  God  is  in  him,  that  from  him  it  may  pass  into  us.  We 
might  start  back  from  such  bold  words  if  we  did  not  re- 
member that  the  same  apostle  who  here  tells  us  that  that 
fullness  dwells  in  Jesus,  crowns  his  wonderful  prayer  for 
the  Ephesian  Christians  with  that  daring  petition,  That  ye 
may  be  filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God.  The  treasure  was 
lodged  in  the  earthen  vessel  of  Christ's  manhood  that  it 
might  be  within  our  reach.  .  .  .  The  process  of  receiving 
of  all  the  divine  fullness  is  a  continuous  one.  We  can  but 
be  approximating  to  the  possession  of  the  infinite  treasure 
which  is  ours  in  Christ ;  and  since  the  treasure  is  infinite,  and 
we  can  indefinitely  grow  in  capacity  of  receiving  God,  there 
must  be  an  eternal  continuance  of  the  filling  and  an  eternal 
increase  of  the  measure  of  what  fills  us.  Our  natures  are 
elastic ;  and  in  love  and  knowledge,  as  well  as  in  purity  and 
capacity  for  blessedness,  there  are  no  bounds  to  be  set  to 
their  possible  expansion. 

"They  will  be  widened  by  bliss  into  a  greater  capacity  for 
bliss.  The  indwelling  Christ  will  enlarge  the  place  of  his 
habitation,  and  as  the  walls  stretch  and  the  roofs  soar,  he 
will  fill  the  greater  house  with  the  light  of  his  presence  and 
the  fragrance  of  his  name.  The  condition  of  this  continu- 
ous reception  of  the  abundant  gift  of  a  divine  life  is  abiding 
in  Jesus.  It  is  in  him  that  we  are  being  filled  full — and  it  is 
only  so  long  as  we  continue  in  him  that  we  continue  full. 
We  cannot  bear  away  our  supplies,  as  one  might  a  full  bucket 
from  a  well,  and  keep  it  full.    All  the  grace  will  trickle  out 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIAXS       375 

and  disappear  unless  we  live  in  constant  union  with  our 
Lord,  whose  Spirit  passes  into  our  deadness  only  so  long 
as  we  are  joined  to  him."  67  As  we  once  heard  it  said,  it 
is  like  filling  a  bowl  with  milk  in  the  evening  and  filling  a 
baby.  In  the  morning  the  bowl  is  still  full,  but  the  baby  is 
empty ;  and  the  difference  between  the  two  is  that  the  bowl 
is  dead  and  the  baby  is  living.  Life  needs  a  constant  supply 
to  keep  it  alive  and  to  give  it  any  increase  of  strength  and 
of  powers.  The  life  of  the  Christian  must  come  from  Christ, 
and  from  Christ  alone. 

Christ  is  the  Head  of  all  principalities  and  powers,  having 
despoiled  them  and  triumphed  over  them  on  the  cross.68 
Christ  is  the  single  source  of  all  spiritual  life.69  Christ  is 
seated  on  the  right  hand  of  God.70  He  will  be  manifested 
in  glory.71  He  is  all  and  in  all.72  He  is  the  one  whom  we 
serve.73  We  have  not  begun  to  exhaust  what  this  epistle 
has  to  tell  us  of  Christ.  We  have  not  noticed  some  almost 
equally  important  passages;  but  sufficient  have  been  cited 
to  show  that  this  epistle  is  preeminently  the  Christological 
epistle  of  the  New  Testament.  We  value  it  chiefly  because 
in  it  Christ  is  shown  to  be  supreme  and  the  sufficient  Medi- 
ator, precluding  all  angel  worship  in  the  Christian  Church 
and  all  theories  of  emanations  in  Christian  philosophy ;  and 
because  in  Christ  there  is  proven  the  necessity  for  a  Chris- 
tian democracy,  precluding  all  arrogant  aristocracies  and 
esoteric  circles  in  the  Christian  faith ;  and  because  in  Christ 
there  is  set  forth  the  freedom  of  the  Christian  from  all 
necessity  of  ascetic  practices  and  ritualistic  mummeries  and 
mummies,  since  all  his  rights  and  privileges  are  guaranteed 
to  him  in  Christ  alone. 

The  lines  ascribed  to  Saint  Patrick  summarize  the  con- 


67  Maclaren,  op.  cit.,  pp.  196-7.     n  Col.  3.  4. 

68  Col.  2.  10,  15.  "Col.  3.  11. 

69  Col.  2.  19.  "  Col.  3.  24. 
"Col.  3.  1. 


376  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

ception  of  what  Christ  may  be  to  the  believer,  as  set  forth 
in  this  epistle  by  Paul. 

Christ,  as  a  light 
Illumine  and  guide  me! 
Christ  as  a  shield  o'ershadow  and  cover  me! 
Christ  be  under  me,  Christ  be  over  me! 
Christ  be  beside  me 

On  left  hand  and  right! 
Christ  be  before  me,  behind  me,  about  me, 
Christ  this  day  be  within  and  without  me! 

Christ,  the  lowly  and  meek, 

Christ,  the  All-Powerful,  be 
In  the  heart  of  each  to  whom  I  speak, 

In  the  mouth  of  each  who  speaks  to  me! 

In  all  who  draw  near  me 

Or  see  me  or  hear  me. 

Bengel  said,  l,~E,v  avrti  nepnraTElTe.  In  eo  ambulate;  in  Mo 
solo.  Hie  Epistola  seopus  est — Walk  in  Christ,  in  Christ 
alone.  This  is  the  scope  of  the  Epistle."  Calvin  said,  "Brevis 
Epistola,  sed  nitcleum  Evangelii  eontinens — The  epistle  is 
short,  but  containing  the  kernel  of  the  gospel." 

VII.  Genuineness  of  the  Epistle 

The  external  evidence  is  good.  The  epistle  is  mentioned 
by  Irenseus,  Clement,  and  Tertullian.  It  may  be  quoted  by 
Justin  Martyr,  who  calls  Christ  "the  firstborn  of  all  crea- 
tion." It  seems  to  be  quoted  also  in  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas. 
It  was  in  Marcion's  collection  of  the  Pauline  letters.  It  was 
included  in  the  canonical  list  of  the  Muratorian  Fragment, 
as  well  as  in  the  Itala  and  the  Peshito,  the  bibles  of  the 
Western  and  the  Eastern  church.  To  most  modern  critics 
the  internal  evidence  is  just  as  good.  Attempts  were  made 
to  disprove  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle  on  the  ground  that 
there  were  new  terms  in  it  which  Paul  had  not  used  in  his 
former  epistles,  and  on  the  further  ground  that  there  was  a 
development  of  the  Christological  and  other  doctrine  beyond 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  COLOSSIANS       377 

the  stages  represented  in  these  earlier  and  undisputed  writ- 
ings. All  such  criticism  proceeds  upon  the  supposition  that 
Paul  must  be  limited  to  a  narrow  vocabulary  and  a  stereo- 
typed style  and  must  be  considered  incapable  of  any  develop- 
ment of  his  ideas  after  they  once  have  been  expressed.  That 
never  has  been  true  of  any  genius,  and  the  tendency  is  to 
discount  any  such  criticism  as  applied  to  Paul.  Weiss  is 
sure  that  "the  wealth  of  Paul's  intellect  lent  him  new  expres- 
sions for  the  new  thoughts  that  stirred  him  at  this  time,  giv- 
ing him  power  to  present  old  truths  in  a  new  form,"  74  and 
the  best  modern  authorities  are  ready  to  agree  with  him  and 
to  recognize  the  genuineness  of  the  epistle.  Of  these  we 
name  only  von  Soden,  Jiilicher,  Harnack,  Zahn,  Lightfoot, 
Sanday,  Moffatt,  Vincent,  and  Adeney. 


74  Weiss,  Introduction,  I,  p.  332. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS 

I.  The  Epistle  from  Laodicea  and  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians 

Near  the  close  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  Paul  writes, 
"When  this  epistle  hath  been  read  among  you,  cause  that  it 
be  read  also  in  the  church  of  the  Laodiceans;  and  that  ye 
also  read  the  epistle  from  Laodicea."  *  What  epistle  is  this 
to  which  Paul  refers?  There  is  no  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans 
in  our  New  Testament  canon.  Yet  the  Laodiceans  had  an 
epistle  which  they  had  written  to  Paul  or  which  Paul  had 
written  to  them,  or  which  somebody  else  had  written  and 
which  Paul  considered  of  enough  importance  to  be  sent  for 
by  the  Colossians  and  to  be  read  by  them. 

i.  The  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans.  (i)  Its  Contents. 
We  said  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans  is  not  in  our 
New  Testament,  and  that  is  true,  but  there  is  an  Epistle  to 
the  Laodiceans  in  existence  which  reads  as  follows:  "Here 
beginneth  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans  which  is  not  in  the 
Canon.  Paul,  an  apostle,  not  of  men  nor  by  man,  but  by 
Jesus  Christ,  to  the  brethren  who  are  at  Laodicea;  grace  to 
you  and  peace  from  God  our  Father,  and  from  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  I  give  thanks  to  God  in  all  my  prayers  that 
you  are  dwelling,  and  abiding  in  him,  awaiting  the  behest  in 
the  day  of  doom.  For  neither  the  vain  speaking  of  some 
unwise  men  has  hindered  you,  the  which  would  turn  you 
from  the  truth  of  the  gospel  which  is  preached  by  me.  And 
now  those  who  are  mine  to  the  profit  of  the  truth  of  the 

1  Col.  4.  16. 

38i 


382  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

gospel,  God  shall  make  deserving  and  doing  graciousness  of 
works  and  having  health  of  everlasting  life.  And  now  my 
bonds  are  manifest  which  I  suffer  in  Christ  Jesus  and  in 
which  I  am  glad  and  rejoice.  And  that  is  to  me  everlasting 
health,  that  this  same  thing  be  done  by  your  prayers  and 
ministering  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  either  by  life  or  by  death. 
Forsooth  to  me  it  is  life  to  live  in  Christ,  and  to  die  is  joy. 
And  his  mercy  shall  do  in  you  the  same  thing,  that  ye  may 
have  the  same  love,  and  that  ye  be  of  one  will.  Therefore, 
ye  well-beloved  brethren,  be  ye  steadfast,  and  walk  ye  in 
the  dread  of  God,  as  ye  have  heard  in  my  presence;  and  life 
shall  be  to  you  without  end.  Assuredly,  it  is  God  who  work- 
eth  in  you.  And,  my  well-beloved  brethren,  do  ye  without 
any  withdrawing  whatever  things  ye  do.  Rejoice  in  Christ 
and  eschew  the  men  defiled  with  lucre  or  foul  winning.  Let 
all  your  asking  be  open  toward  God  and  be  ye  steadfast  in 
the  knowledge  of  Christ.  And  do  ye  the  things  that  be  holy 
and  true  and  chaste  and  just  and  able  to  be  loved ;  and  keep 
ye  in  heart  the  things  that  ye  have  heard  and  received ;  and 
peace  shall  be  to  you.  All  holy  men  greet  you.  The  grace 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be  with  your  spirit.  And  cause  ye 
that  the  epistle  of  the  Colossians  be  read  to  you.  Here 
endeth  the  epistle  to  the  Laodiceans."  2 

(2)  Its  Character.  Light  foot  says  of  this  epistle  that  it 
"is  a  cento  of  Pauline  phrases  strung  together  without  any 
definite  connexion  or  any  clear  object.  They  are  taken 
chiefly  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  .  .  .  The 
apostle's  injunction  in  Col.  4.  16  suggested  the  forgery,  and 
such  currency  as  it  ever  attained  was  due  to  the  support 
which  that  passage  was  supposed  to  give  it.  Unlike  most 
forgeries,  it  had  no  ulterior  aim.  It  was  not  framed  to 
advance    any   particular    opinions,    whether    heterodox    or 


2  For  the  old  English,  see  Westcott,  History  of  the  Canon,  p.  461. 
A  translation  into  more  modem  English  may  be  found  in  The  New 
Century  Bible.    Ephesians,  Appendix  A,  p.  179. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIAXS        383 

orthodox.  It  has  no  doctrinal  peculiarities.  Thus  it  is  quite 
harmless,  so  far  as  falsity  and  stupidity  combined  can  ever 
be  regarded  as  harmless."  3 

(3)  Its  History.  The  history  of  this  Epistle  to  the 
Laodiceans  "forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  episodes  in 
the  literary  history  of  the  Bible."  4  It  probably  was  written 
in  Greek  and  translated  into  Latin.  It  was  widely  known 
before  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  It  was  condemned  as 
apocryphal  by  Jerome,  A.  D.  400,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia, 
A.  D.  450,  and  Theodoret,  A.  D.  450,  and  by  the  Second 
Council  of  Nicsea,  A.  D.  787.  On  the  other  hand,  Gregory 
the  Great  declared  it  to  be  genuine,  A.  D.  550-600.  It  is  in 
one  of  the  two  most  ancient  copies  of  the  Vulgate,  and  it 
occurs  very  frequently  in  the  Western  manuscripts  of  the 
Bible.  It  is  found  in  the  great  Gothic  Bible  of  Toledo,  which 
belongs  to  the  eighth  century,  in  the  Book  of  Armagh,  A.  D. 
807,  and  in  Charlemagne's  Bible  of  the  ninth  century,  and 
in  the  great  Bible  of  the  King's  Library  and  other  splendid 
copies  probably  prepared  for  church  use  and  now  preserved 
with  the  two  last  named  in  the  British  Museum.  It  passed 
from  the  Latin  Bibles  into  the  early  vernacular  versions. 
Some  fourteen  editions  of  the  German  Bible  contained  it 
before  Luther's  day.  It  was  in  the  first  Bohemian  Bible  of 
1488,  and  also  in  the  Albigensian  version  made  at  Lyons. 
It  was  not  included  in  Wiclif's  Bible,  but  it  was  added  to  it 
in  some  of  the  later  manuscripts.  "Thus  for  more  than  nine 
centuries  this  forged  epistle  hovered  about  the  doors  of  the 
sacred  canon,  without  either  finding  admission  or  being  per- 
emptorily excluded.  At  length  the  revival  of  learning  dealt 
its  deathblow  to  this  as  to  so  many  other  spurious  preten- 
sions. As  a  rule,  Roman  Catholics  and  Reformers  were 
equally  strong  in  their  condemnation  of  its  worthlessness. 
.  .  .  The  dawn  of  the  Reformation  effectually  scared  away 


3  Lightfoot,  Colossians,  pp.  279,  280. 

4  Westcott,  The  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  p.  458. 


384  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

this  ghost  of  a  Pauline  epistle,  and  it  will  not  again  be  suf- 
fered to  haunt  the  mind  of  the  church."  5 

2.  Hypotheses.  Having  disposed  of  this  spurious  Epistle 
to  the  Laodiceans  in  this  summary  fashion,  Light  foot  dis- 
cusses fourteen  other  hypotheses  concerning  the  real  Epistle 
from  Laodicea  mentioned  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 
He  concludes  that  it  was  not  an  epistle  written  by  the  Laodi- 
ceans to  Paul  or  to  Epaphras  or  to  the  Colossians,  and  that 
it  was  not  an  epistle  written  by  Paul  while  resident  in 
Laodicea,  and  that  it  was  not  an  epistle  written  to  the 
Laodiceans  by  John  or  Luke  or  Epaphras  or  Paul,  and  that 
it  is  not  a  lost  epistle,  and  that  it  cannot  be  identified  with 
any  other  of  the  canonical  epistles  which  some  have  sug- 
gested in  this  connection,  either  Hebrews  or  First  or  Second 
Thessalonians  or  Galatians  or  Philemon  or  First  Timothy, 
but  that  it  can  be  identified  with  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
and  therefore  is  in  the  New  Testament  canon  to-day. 

3.  Conclusion.  The  epistle  from  Laodicea  mentioned  by 
Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  is  our  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  which,  having  been  brought  to  Laodicea  and  there 
read,  was  to  be  forwarded  to  the  next  city  eastward  in  the 
Lycus  valley  that  the  Christians  at  Colossae  also  might  have 
the  benefit  of  its  contents.  They  had  an  epistle  of  their  own 
which  they  could  exchange  with  the  Laodiceans,  and  both  of 
the  churches  could  profit  with  the  reading  of  both  the 
epistles.  Tertullian  tells  us  twice  that  Marcion  called  our 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans,  and 
we  will  see  later  that  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  was  an  encyclical  letter,  sent  from 
city  to  city  through  Asia  Minor  and  so  reaching  Laodicea 
and  Colossae  in  turn.  Accepting  this  identification  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  with  "the  epistle  from  Laodicea," 
we  have  in  Col.  4.  16  a  strong  link  of  connection  between  the 
two  epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians.    There  are 


6  Lightfoot,  op.  cit.,  pp.  297,  298. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        385 

many  other  facts  which  unite  these  two  epistles  closely  to- 
gether, and  we  shall  turn  next  to  these. 

II.   The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  and  the  Epistle 

TO  THE  EPHESIANS 

I.  Resemblances.  (1)  These  are  both  prison  epistles.6 
(2)  Tychicus  is  intrusted  with  them  both.7  Written  from 
the  same  place  and  carried  by  the  same  man,  it  would  not  be 
surprising  if  they  were  written  at  nearly  the  same  time,  and 
they  discussed  similar  themes  in  similar  style.  This  we  find 
to  be  true  of  them.  (3)  The  salutations  practically  are  the 
same.  (4)  The  general  structure  of  the  two  epistles  is  the 
same.  (5)  They  have  the  same  general  subjects  and  the 
same  leading  thoughts.  "The  relations  of  Christ  to  the 
universe  and  to  the  church  are  a  dominant  theme  in  both ; 
the  references  to  the  spirit-world  and  its  principalities  and 
powers,  and  to  the  need  of  divine  wisdom  and  knowledge 
among  the  readers,  are  common ;  and  the  ethical  teaching  is 
strikingly  similar,  both  in  its  precepts  and  in  its  lines  of 
application." 8  (6)  There  are  most  remarkable  parallel 
passages.  Compare  Eph.  1.  7  with  Col.  1.  14;  Eph.  1.  10 
with  Col.  1.  20;  Eph.  1.  15-17  with  Col.  1.  3,  4;  Eph.  1.  18 
with  Col.  1.  27;  Eph.  1.  19  with  Col.  2.  12;  Eph. 
1.  21-23  with  Col.  1.  16-19.  These  examples  are  taken  from 
the  first  chapter  of  Ephesians  only,  and  a  similar  list  can  be 
made  out  for  all  the  other  chapters  as  well.  (7)  There  are 
the  same  words  and  phrases  and  similitudes,  the  same  coun- 
sels and  exhortations.  There  are  similar  terms,  similar  doc- 
trines, and  similar  descriptions.  Samuel  Davidson  reckons 
that  "out  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  verses  contained 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  seventy-eight  contain  expres- 
sions identical  with  those  in  the  Colossian  letter."  9    Adam 


6  Col.  4.  10;  Eph.  6.  20. 

7  Col.  4.  7-9;  Eph.  6.  21,  22. 

8  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  p.  343. 

8  Davidson,  Introduction,  II,  p.  276. 


386  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Clarke  says,  "No  other  two  epistles  exhibit  so  many  marks  of 
correspondency  and  resemblance."  Farrar  sums  up  the 
truth  in  one  sentence,  "They  are  twin  sisters  of  close  re- 
semblance yet  marked  individuality,  whose  faces,  alike  yet 
different,  can  only  be  explained  by  their  common  parent- 
age." 10  We  conclude  that  they  were  written  by  the  same 
man  at  about  the  same  time,  and  that  they  were  addressed  to 
churches  in  about  the  same  general  environment  and  spirit- 
ual condition. 

2.  Differences,  (i)  In  Colossians  the  personal  element  is 
more  apparent  than  in  Ephesians.  Paul  has  concrete  rela- 
tions in  mind  as  he  writes  Colossians  and  only  general  truth 
in  his  thought  as  he  writes  Ephesians.  Colossians  is  Pauline 
throughout,  and  Ephesians  is  more  Johannine  than  any  other 
writing  of  Paul.  Colossians  has  personal  references,  local 
allusions,  and  definite  errors  in  view ;  in  Ephesians  the  truth 
expressed  is  of  universal  application  and  is  not  to  be  appro- 
priated to  any  particular  individuals  or  place.  (2)  Colos- 
sians is  briefer,  more  formal,  and  more  logical.  Ephesians 
is  longer,  more  rhetorical,  and  more  mystical.  They  differ 
in  length  and  they  differ  in  style.  (3)  Colossians  is  more 
controversial  and  polemical ;  Ephesians  is  more  placid  and 
poetical.  Farrar  says,  "In  Colossians  Paul  is  the  soldier; 
in  Ephesians  the  builder."11  Findlay  puts  it  in  this  way: 
"Colossians  is  a  letter  of  discussion,  Ephesians  of  reflection. 
In  the  former  we  behold  Paul  in  spiritual  conflict,  in  the 
latter  his  soul  is  at  rest."  Then  he  quotes  the  following 
figure  as  descriptive  of  their  differing  styles:  "The  first  is 
like  the  mountain  stream  cleaving  its  way  with  swift  pas- 
sage, by  deep  ravines  and  sudden,  broken  turnings,  through 
some  barrier  thrown  across  its  path ;  the  second  is  the  far- 
spreading  lake,  in  which  its  chafed  waters  find  rest,  mirror- 
ing in  their  clear  depths  the  eternal  heavens  above."  12    In 

10  Farrar,  Messages,  p.  326. 

11  Life  of  Paul,  p.  632. 

18  Findlay,  The  Epistles  of  Paul,  p.  184. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        387 

Colossians  there  is  the  clash  of  opposing  arms,  the  crash  of 
antagonistic  creeds ;  in  Ephesians  there  is  the  peace  of  a 
service  of  undisturbed  praise  and  prayer.  Colossians  is  a 
challenge  to  conflict,  abrupt,  forcible,  earnest ;  Ephesians  is 
a  call  to  quiet  meditation  in  all  calmness  of  spirit  and  rest 
of  soul.  In  Colossians  there  is  the  lightning  flash  and  the 
thunder  roll ;  in  Ephesians  the  storm  has  been  followed  with 
a  flood  of  sunshine  and  the  whole  landscape  is  bathed  in 
light  and  in  peace.  (4)  The  subjects  are  much  alike,  but  not 
identical.  Colossians  is  the  Christological  epistle  ;  Ephesians 
is  the  epistle  of  the  holy  catholic  church.  In  Colossians  the 
relation  between  Christ  and  the  universe  is  set  before  us,  and 
in  Ephesians  the  relation  between  Christ  and  the  church. 
(5)  Colossians  has  only  one  allusion  to  the  Old  Testament 
and  no  quotation  from  it;  in  Ephesians  there  are  eight  or 
nine  quotations,  and  the  Old  Testament  coloring  is  more 
decided  throughout.  (6)  One  of  the  characteristic  phrases 
of  Ephesians,  "the  heavenlies,"  is  not  to  be  found  in  Colos- 
sians at  all.  (7)  The  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  emphasized 
much  more  in  Ephesians  than  in  Colossians.  There  are 
twelve  references  to  it  in  the  former  and  only  one  in  the 
latter.  (8)  There  are  five  paragraphs  peculiar  to  Ephesians, 
the  unity  of  the  church  of  the  redeemed  with  its  foreordained 
perfection  and  its  universal  outlook  ( 1.  3-14),  the  ideal  unity 
working  to  the  building  up  of  the  Body  of  Christ  in  love 
(4.  4-16),  contrast  between  the  walk  in  the  light  and  the 
works  of  darkness  (5.  8-14),  the  mystery  of  marriage  as  a 
symbol  of  the  union  between  Christ  and  his  church  (5. 
22-33),  the  whole  panoply  of  God  insuring  the  Christian's 
safety  and  victory  and  peace  (6.  10-17).  These  five  para- 
graphs are  not  paralleled  in  Colossians. 

3.  Their  Order  in  Time  of  Composition.  Light  foot  has 
suggested  that  "the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  stands  to  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians  in  very  much  the  same  relation  as 
the  Romans  to  the  Galatians.  The  one  is  the  general  and 
systematic  exposition  of  the  same  truths  which  appear  in  a 


388  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

special  bearing  in  the  other."  13  Weiss  deems  it  "most 
natural  to  suppose  that  the  epistle  designed  for  concrete 
needs  was  written  first ;  wider  and  freer  expression  being 
then  given  by  the  apostle  in  a  letter  of  more  general  character 
to  the  thoughts  by  which  he  was  stirred."  14  Colossians  was 
called  forth  by  a  special  emergency,  and,  having  written  it, 
Paul  found  himself  sufficiently  interested  in  the  new  theme 
to  elaborate  it  in  a  second  epistle;  and  naturally,  the  second 
treatment  was  fuller  and  freer,  more  rounded  and  rhythmical. 
Cut  loose  from  all  local  entanglements,  it  was  ready  to  rise 
into  the  heavenlies  and  abide  there,  like  a  new  aeroplane 
wheeling  where  it  would  and  celebrating  the  conquest  of  an 
element  hitherto  never  overcome.  Colossians  was  written 
first  and  Ephesians  is  the  author's  improvement  upon  it. 
Note  that  little  word  "also"  in  Eph.  6.  21 — "That  ye  also 
may  know  my  affairs,"  Tychicus  will  tell  you  all  about  me. 
The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  had  insured  this  knowledge 
there  at  Colossse,  and  now  that  those  addressed  in  this  epistle 
may  also  know  these  things  this  second  epistle  is  written  and 
Tychicus  is  intrusted  with  it  as  well  as  with  the  other  two, 
to  Philemon  and  to  the  Colossians. 

III.  General  Characteristics  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Its  Catholicity.  Pfleiderer  says,  "The  idea  of  catho- 
licity is  here  roused  to  dogmatic  definiteness  and  predomi- 
nant significance."  15  We  have  a  wider  outlook  in  this 
epistle  than  in  any  other.  It  is  the  universal  church  Paul  has 
in  mind  as  he  writes,  the  church  of  all  of  the  nations  and  of 
all  the  ages.  He  thinks  of  it  with  its  present  needs  but  also 
with  its  future  glories.  He  sees  the  victory  from  afar  and 
by  faith  he  brings  it  nigh.  The  word  "all"  occurs  in  this 
epistle  fifty-one  times.     God  worketh  all  things  after  the 


13  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  395. 

14  Weiss,  Introduction,  I,  p.  347. 

16  Pfleiderer,  Paulinism,  II,  p.  164. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        389 

counsel  of  his  will.  He  sums  up  all  things  in  Christ.  He 
filleth  all  in  all.  All  things  are  put  into  subjection  under  his 
feet.  He  sits  far  above  all  rule,  and  authority,  and  power, 
and  dominion,  and  every  name  that  is  named,  not  only  in 
this  world,  but  also  in  that  which  is  to  come.  He  is  able 
to  do  exceeding  abundantly  above  all  that  we  ask  or  think. 
The  shield  of  faith  is  able  to  quench  all  the  fiery  darts  of 
the  evil  one.  The  victory  of  the  Christian  is  complete.  The 
sovereignty  of  the  Christ  is  a//-embracing.  The  holy  catholic 
church  is  to  be  supreme  in  the  universe.  It  is  the  Body  of 
Him  who  filleth  all  in  all. 

2.  Its  Comprehensiveness.  We  have  here  the  sum- 
mation of  all  the  Pauline  thought  along  this  line.  One  half 
of  the  epistle  is  given  up  to  theology,  and  it  is  the  last  lengthy 
theological  discussion  we  have  from  Paul's  pen.  A  single 
paragraph  in  Philippians  and  single  sentences  in  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  may  have  some  theological  importance  and  may 
have  been  written  later,  but  there  is  nothing  in  them  to  com- 
pare with  these  beginning  chapters  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians.  Here  the  aged  seer  formulates  his  faith  and 
his  hope  for  the  last  time,  and  his  creed  is  no  dry-as-dust 
shibboleth  or  lifeless  form.  It  is  a  psean  of  praise  from 
beginning  to  end.  The  latter  half  of  the  epistle  is  given  to 
practical  ethics,  and  the  principles  are  laid  down  which  may 
regulate  the  whole  of  human  conduct  aright.  The  sweep  of 
Paul's  thought  takes  in  the  Gentile  and  the  Jew,  the  heaven 
and  the  earth,  the  past  and  the  present,  and  the  timeless 
ages  to  come.  It  is  a  little  volume  of  comprehensive  import. 
It  is  more  of  a  book  than  a  letter.  The  letter  form  in  which 
it  is  written  is  unessential,  and  easily  might  be  taken  away. 
It  is  only  the  wrapping  of  the  book.    The  value  is  all  within. 

3.  Its  Literary  Finish.  This  epistle  is  a  work  of  art.  Its 
sublimity  of  thought  is  matched  by  its  beauty  of  expression. 
Most  of  the  Pauline  letters  were  written  at  white  heat  and 
bear  the  traces  of  great  haste  in  their  composition.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  seems  to  have  been  written  in  a  period 


390  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  comparative  leisure,  but  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  is 
written  from  a  prison  cell,  where  Paul  probably  was  more 
free  from  interruption  than  he  could  have  been  at  any  time  at 
Corinth.  At  any  rate,  Paul  had  thought  his  way  through  this 
line  of  reasoning  and  exhortation  in  the  composition  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  and  this  epistle  represents  his 
second  thought  upon  these  themes.  He  has  pondered  them 
long,  and  now  that  he  writes  them  down,  his  periods  take 
an  unwonted  elegance;  he  finds  himself  rising  into  unpre- 
cedented eloquence.  His  rapt  soul  expresses  itself  in  lyric 
beauty,  in  reverent,  rhythmic  reasoning  which  rises  to  the 
level  of  an  epic. 

Von  Soden  declares  that  the  whole  first  part  has  a  litur- 
gical character  and  seems  like  one  of  those  hymns  in  which 
the  members  of  the  church  are  directed  to  teach  and  admon- 
ish one  another.  Kay  calls  it  "the  Christian's  Sixty-eighth 
Psalm."  Schaff  says  it  is  "a  solemn  liturgy,  and  ode  to 
Christ  and  his  spotless  bride,  the  Song  of  Songs  in  the  New 
Testament."  16  Lock  affirms  that  "when  Paul  wrote  this 
letter  he  was,  as  at  Philippi,  singing  hymns  in  prison."  17 
The  language  of  this  epistle  has  been  caught  up  by  multitudes' 
of  hymn-writers  in  the  modern  church.  Bunyan's  immortal 
allegory  got  its  suggestion  and  much  of  its  inspiration  here. 
The  world's  literature  would  suffer  an  irreparable  loss  if 
all  the  conceptions  furnished  it  from  this  epistle  were  to 
be  swept  away. 

4.  Its  Lofty  Flights.  This  epistle  has  been  called  "the 
epistle  of  the  heavenlies,"  "the  third  heaven  epistle,"  and 
"the  epistle  of  the  ascension."  Its  chapters  have  been  called 
"the  Alps  of  the  New  Testament."  It  soars  away  into  the 
highest  heights  of  speculation.  It  begins  with  one  sentence 
with  seven  relative  clauses  "which  rise  like  a  thick  cloud  of 
incense  higher  and  higher  to  the  very  throne  of  God."  1G 


15  Schaff,  op.  cit.,  I,  p.  780. 

17  Hastings's  Bible  Dictionary,  I,  p.  720. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        391 

Note  the  characteristic  words  in  this  epistle — the  heavenlies, 
spiritual,  glory,  mystery,  plenitude,  light,  love,  grace,  and 
peace.  These  are  the  stars  and  the  suns  which  illuminate  the 
firmament  of  Paul's  thought  here.  We  need  telescopes  of 
spiritual  intuition  to  reach  or  grasp  any  clear  notion  of  these 
realities  in  Paul's  experience  and  teaching.  He  is  at  his 
highest  pitch  of  inspiration.  He  is  at  his  best  of  thinking 
and  writing.  Paul  sits  in  his  prison  cell,  but  he  sits  at  the 
same  time  in  the  heavenly  places  with  Christ 

IV.  Characteristic  Conceptions  of  the  Epistle 

1.  God.  (1)  His  Will.  Salmond  says  of  this  epistle  that 
"it  is  a  distinctively  theological  epistle,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  distinctively  anthropological  or 
psychological,  and  that  to  the  Colossians  Christological.  .  .  . 
What  gives  it  its  peculiar  majesty  is  the  way  in  which  it 
carries  everything  back  to  God  himself,  his  will,  his  eternal 
purpose  and  counsel.  .  .  .  The  great  subjects  of  predes- 
tination and  the  divine  plan,  eternal  in  the  mind  of  God, 
centering  in  Christ  and  fulfilled  in  him,  have  a  larger  and 
a  more  definite  place  in  this  epistle  than  in  any  other."  1S 
Paul  is  an  apostle  by  the  will  of  God  (1.  1).  God  has  fore- 
ordained us  unto  adoption  according  to  the  good  pleasure 
of  his  will  (1.  5).  He  has  made  known  unto  us  the 
mystery  of  his  will,  according  to  his  good  pleasure  which 
he  purposed  in  him  (1.  9).  We  were  foreordained  to  be  a 
heritage,  according  to  the  purpose  of  him  who  worketh  all 
things  after  the  counsel  of  his  will  (1.  11).  The  manifold 
wisdom  of  God  is  now  made  known  through  the  church, 
according  to  the  eternal  purpose  which  he  purposed  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord  (3.  11).  We  are  to  understand  what  the 
will  of  the  Lord  is  (5.  17).  We  are  to  do  the  will  of  God 
from  the  heart  (6.  6). 

(2)  His  Fatherhood.    The  will  of  God  is  the  will  of  our 


18  Salmond,  Commentary  on  Ephcsians,  p.  237. 


392  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Father.  Emphasis  is  laid  in  this  epistle  upon  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  as  well  as  his  foreordination.  Eight  times  the  title 
"Father"  is  given  to  him ;  and  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
which  is  much  longer,  it  occurs  only  four  times.  The  epistle 
begins,  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  (i.  3).  He  is  our  Father  (1.  2).  He  is  the  Father 
of  all  (4.  6).  He  is  the  Father  of  glory  (1.  17).  He  is  the 
Father  (2.  18;  5.  20;  6.  23),  from  whom  every  family  in 
heaven  and  on  earth  is  named  (3.  14). 

(3)  His  Grace.  It  is  in  the  salutation,  Grace  to  you  and 
peace  with  God  (1.  2).  It  is  in  the  benediction,  Grace  be 
with  all  them  that  love  our  Lord  (6.  24).  Again  and  again 
through  the  epistle  the  gift  of  grace  is  emphasized.  Salva- 
tion is  by  grace.  It  is  all  to  the  glory  of  God's  grace.  Thir- 
teen times  the  word  occurs.  "The  Grace  of  God"  would  be 
a  good  title  for  the  first  three  chapters.  "The  Grace  of  God 
as  Manifested  in  Christian  Living"  would  be  a  good  title 
for  the  last  three  chapters.  "By  grace  have  ye  been  saved 
through  faith;  and  that  not  of  yourselves,  it  is  the  gift  of 
God" — that  is  the  text  of  the  whole  discussion.19 

2.  Unity.  The  Lord  prayed  for  all  believers  that  they 
might  be  one,  even  as  he  and  the  Father  were  one,2"  and 
Lock  declares  that  this  whole  epistle  "might  be  described 
as  an  expression  of  thanksgiving  that  the  Lord's  prayer  for 
his  church  as  embodied  in  John  17  was  in  process  of  ful- 
fillment." He  points  out  that  almost  every  verse  in  that 
seventeenth  chapter  of  John  finds  a  parallel  in  this  epistle : 
The  stress  on  God's  fatherhood  in  verse  1,  the  power  over 
all  flesh  in  verse  2,  life  identified  with  knowledge  in  verse  3, 
the  preexistent  glory  of  Christ  in  verse  5,  the  revelation  to  a 
few  in  verse  6,  Christ  glorified  in  his  disciples  in  verse  10, 
the  prayer  for  unity  based  upon  God's  unity  in  verse  11, 
Christ's  joy  fulfilled  in  his  disciples  in  verse  12,  the  antag- 


Eph.  2.  8. 
John  17.  21-23. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS         393 

onism  of  the  world  in  verse  14,  the  protection  from  the  evil 
one  in  verse  15,  sanctification  by  truth  in  verse  17,  the 
unity  of  Christians  as  a  means  of  promoting  Christ's  work 
in  verse  21,  God's  love  for  Christians  like  His  love  for  Christ 
in  verse  23,  and  God's  love  for  Christ  before  the  founda- 
tion of  the  world  in  verse  24.  These  parallels  are  so  striking 
that  Lock  suggests  that  Paul  must  have  heard  the  very  words 
used  by  Jesus  in  this  closing  prayer  of  his  ministry,  possibly 
from  the  lips  of  John  himself  at  the  time  when  they  were 
discussing  the  terms  of  unity  between  Jew  and  Gentile  as 
Christian  believers  through  apostolic  preaching.  There  at 
Jerusalem  John  may  have  repeated  the  Lord's  prayer  for 
unity  again  and  again,  and  it  may  have  been  chiefly  respon- 
sible for  the  amicable  settlement  of  all  differences  at  that 
time.21  This  is  the  epistle  of  Church  Unity.  It  sets  forth 
the  essentials  of  unity  among  the  members  of  the  church 
catholic,  the  unity  of  the  individual  believer  with  Christ,  the 
unity  of  all  things  in  God. 

(1)  In  Christ.  Christ  and  the  Christian  are  one.  The 
believer's  identification  with  Christ  is  set  forth  in  this  epistle 
more  clearly  than  ever  before.  It  is  a  chief  theme  in  all  of 
the  Pauline  epistles.  The  life  of  the  Christian  is  to  be  a  life 
in  Christ.  Those  two  words  "in  Christ"  sum  up  the  Pauline 
theology.  They  occur  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  times  in 
Paul's  epistles,  thirty-six  times  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians,  and  only  once  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians.  They 
express  the  absoluteness  of  the  union  between  Christ  and 
the  Christian.  For  the  Christian  to  live  is  Christ.  In  spirit 
and  in  experience  he  is  one  with  his  Lord.  This  relation 
between  the  individual  believer  and  Christ  leads  to  a  like 
relation  between  the  universal  church  and  the  Christ.  It  is 
his  Building,  fitly  framed  together,  and  growing  into  a  holy 
temple  in  the  Lord  (2.  21).  It  is  his  Bride,  made  glorious, 
not  having  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing,  holy  and  with- 


?•  Hastings's  Bible  Dictionary,  I,  pp.  714,  716. 


394  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

out  blemish  (5.  27).  The  unity  of  the  Building  in  which 
Christ  is  the  chief  corner  stone  and  the  believers  are  built 
upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets  into  the 
one  habitation  of  God,  and  the  unity  of  the  marriage  rela- 
tion in  which  the  Bride  becomes  with  her  husband  one  flesh 
do  not  seem  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  apostle's  thought 
at  this  point.  He  calls  the  church  the  Body  of  Christ  ( 1.  23  ; 
4.  4,  12,  13),  and  this  is  said  to  be  the  highest  and  holiest 
name  ever  given  to  it.  These  are  not  mere  figures  of  speech 
to  Paul.  They  represent  a  great  Divine-Human  reality. 
The  union  of  Christ  with  the  church  is  expressed  in  the 
reciprocal  terms:  He  is  its  Saviour  (5.  23).  He  is  its 
cornerstone  (2.  20).  Pie  is  its  Husband  (5.  25).  He  is  its 
Head  (1.  22:4.  15;  5.  23). 

(2)  In  the  Spirit.  The  words  "Spirit"  and  "spiritual" 
occur  thirteen  times  in  the  epistle,  and  only  once  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians:  God  hath  blessed  us  with  every 
spiritual  blessing  in  Christ  (1.  3).  We  are  sealed  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  promise  (1.  13).  He  will  be  to  us  a  Spirit 
of  wisdom  and  revelation  (1.  17).  We  will  have  our  access 
in  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father  (2.  18).  We  become  a  habita- 
tion of  God  in  the  Spirit  (2.  22).  The  mystery  of  Christ 
hath  been  revealed  in  the  Spirit  (3.  5).  We  are  strength- 
ened with  power  through  his  Spirit  (3.  16).  We  are  to 
keep  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace  (4.  3).  We 
are  not  to  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  (4.  30).  We  are 
to  be  filled  with  the  Spirit  (5.  18).  The  sword  of  the  Spirit 
is  the  word  of  God  (6.  17).  We  are  to  pray  at  all  seasons 
in  the  Spirit  (6.  18).  The  Holy  Spirit  of  God  is  the  Spirit 
of  Sealing,  the  Spirit  of  Wisdom,  the  Spirit  of  Access,  the 
Spirit  of  Revelation,  the  Spirit  of  Missions,  the  Spirit  of 
Unity,  the  Spirit  of  Power,  the  Spirit  of  Prayer.  We  arc 
to  be  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  our  minds  until  it  becomes 
identical  with  that  of  the  Spirit  of  God  (4.  23),  and  in  that 
unity  of  the  Spirit  we  will  find  the  spirit  of  unity  in  the 
church. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIAXS         395 

(3)  In  Love.  The  word  "love"  occurs  nineteen  times  in 
this  epistle,  more  often  than  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
or  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  Unity  in  Christ  and  in  the 
Spirit  is  unity  in  love.  Christ  is  the  Beloved  (1.  6).  We 
are  to  be  holy  in  love  (1.  4).  God's  great  love  wherewith  he 
loved  us  is  the  ground  of  our  salvation  (2.  4).  We  are  to 
show  love  to  all  the  saints  (1.  15).  Wre  are  to  be  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love  (3.  17).  We  are  to  know  the  love  of  Christ 
that  passeth  knowledge  (3.  19).  We  are  to  forbear  one 
another  in  love  (4.  2).  We  are  to  speak  the  truth  in  love 
(4.  15).  The  church  is  to  build  itself  up  in  love  (4.  16). 
We  are  to  walk  in  love,  even  as  Christ  also  loved  us  (5.  2). 
1  tusbands  are  to  love  their  wives  even  as  Christ  loved  the 
church  (5.  25,  28,  33).  The  benediction  prays  for  peace 
and  love  with  faith  for  all  the  brethren,  and  grace  for  all 
them  that  love  the  Lord  (6.  23,  24).  The  secret  of  unity  is 
to  be  found  in  love  for  the  Lord  and  love  for  all  the  brethren. 
The  unity  is  not  necessarily  in  organization  or  in  catechism 
or  creed.  It  is  a  unity  in  Christ,  in  the  Spirit,  in  love. 
Protestants,  Roman  Catholics,  Greek  Catholics  may  unite  in 
these. 

The  word  "peace"  occurs  eight  times  in  the  epistle.  The 
thought  of  unity  which  runs  through  the  epistle  finds  ex- 
pression in  an  unusual  number  of  Greek  compounds,  both 
nouns  and  verbs,  setting  forth  the  closeness  of  the  connec- 
tion existing  between  God  and  his  creatures,  God  and  man, 
and  all  the  members  of  the  Christian  Church.  Some  of  these 
compounds  are  absolutely  unique,  seemingly  manufactured 
by  the  apostle  to  emphasize  his  conception  of  the  fellowship 
in  Christ  (3.  6).  Others,  like  them  in  their  use  if  not  in 
their  uniqueness,  may  be  found  in  2.  5,  6,  19,  22;  4.  3,  16. 

3.  The  phrase,  the  heavenlies,  is  characteristic  of  this 
epistle.  4.  True  knowledge  is  emphasized  from  beginning 
to  end.  5.  Other  frequently  recurring  words  are  "fullness" 
and  "filling,"  six  times;  "mystery,"  six  times;  "glory,"  seven 
times;  "all."  fifty-one  times. 


396  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

V.  Outline  of  the  Epistle 

I.   Doctrinal — Chapters  I  to  3. 

1.  Salutation,  1.  1,2. 

2.  Doxology  for  spiritual  blessings,  1.  3-14. 

3.  Thanksgiving  and  prayer  for  the  saints,  1.  15-23. 

4.  Salvation  by  grace,  2.  1-10. 

5.  Gentile  and  Jew  united  in  the  Spirit,  2.  11-22. 

6.  Paul's  personal  relation  to  his  gospel,  3.  I— 13. 

7.  Prayer  for  all  believers,  3.  14-19. 

8.  Doxology,  3.  20,  21. 

II.  Practical — Chapters  4  to  6. 

1.  The  unity  of  the  church  as  the  body  of  Christ,  4.  1-16. 

2.  Putting  on  the  new  man,  4.  17-24. 

3.  Things  to  avoid,  4.  25-32. 

4.  Walk  in  love,  5.  1,2. 

5.  Walk  as  children  of  light,  5.  3-14. 

6.  Walk  as  wise,  5.  15-21. 

7.  Wives  and  husbands,  5.  22-33. 

8.  Children  and  parents,  6.  1-4. 

9.  Servants  and  masters,  6.  5-9. 

10.  The  panoply  of  God,  6.  10-20. 

11.  Tychicus  sent,  6.  21,  22. 

12.  Benediction,  6.  23,  24. 

As  a  memory  aid  we  suggest  an  alliterative  outline  under 
eight  heads,  including  only  the  epistle  proper  and  adding  the 
salutation  at  one  end  and  the  benediction  at  the  other:  1.  A 
Christian  Greeting  (1.  1,  2).  2.  The  Christian's  Praise 
(1.  3-14).  3.  A  Christian's  Prayer  (1.  15-23).  4.  A  Chris- 
tian's Profession  of  Faith  (2.  1-22).  5.  A  Christian 
Preacher  (3.  1-13).  6.  A  Christian  Prayer  (3.  14-21).  7. 
The  Christian  Peripatetic  (4.  1-6.  9).  8.  The  Christian 
Panoply  (6.  10-20).  9.  A  Christian  Paraclete  (6.  21,  22). 
10.  A  Christian  Benediction  (6.  23-24). 

VI.  Conclusions 

1.  Genuineness.  The  most  ancient  authorities  which  we 
can  quote  are  unanimous  in  assigning  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephcsians  to  Paul.    We  can  trace  some  evidence  of  its  cir- 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        397 

culation  at  the  close  of  the  first  century  or  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  second  century,  and  by  the  close  of  the  second 
century  it  was  widely  known  and  generally  used  and  always 
ascribed  to  the  authorship  of  Paul.  It  may  be  mentioned, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  the  New  Testament  itself,  in  Col.  4.  16. 
There  arc  phrases  which  seem  like  echoes  of  this  epistle  in 
Clement  of  Rome,  the  Teaching  of  the  Apostles,  and  the 
Epistle  of  Barnabas.  Ignatius  uses  the  characteristic  expres- 
sions of  the  epistle,  and  possible  quotations  from  it  are  found 
in  Polycarp  and  Hennas.  Hippolytus  tells  us  that  the 
Valentinians  quoted  Eph.  3.  4-18  as  Scripture.  With 
Irenaeus  the  testimony  becomes  as  clear  as  possible,  for  he 
quotes  the  epistle  by  name  and  says  that  Paul  was  its  author. 
The  Muratorian  Canon  includes  Ephesus  as  one  of  the 
churches  to  which  Paul  wrote  his  epistles.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria and  Tertullian  are  equally  explicit,  and  from  their 
time  on  the  testimony  is  continuous  and  clear. 

It  has  been  said  that  if  the  external  evidence  for  this 
epistle  is  inadequate,  then  we  have  no  adequate  evidence 
that  Virgil  wrote  the  Georgics,  or  Horace  the  Odes,  or 
Augustine  the  Confessions.22  Nevertheless,  some  modern 
scholars  have  doubted  or  denied  the  Pauline  authorship. 
Schleiermacher,  De  Wette,  Weizsacker,  Ewald,  Baur, 
Holtzmann,  Renan,  Schwegler,  Davidson,  Cone,  Moffatt, 
Dobschiitz,  Pfleiderer,  Clemen,  Scott,  and  von  Soden  are 
mnong  them.  Jiilicher  cannot  decide  for  or  against  the 
authenticity  of  the  epistle,  but  Harnack  thinks  that  the 
weight  of  external  testimony  in  its  favor  is  decisive.  Weiss, 
Zahn,  Shaw,  Knowling,  Lunemann,  Lock,  Robertson,  Bacon, 
Schenkel,  Salmon,  and  Godet  agree.  McGiffert  concludes 
that  the  authenticity  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  carries 
with  it  that  of  its  companion  epistle.  Dr.  Hort  was  sure 
that  Ephesians  bore  "the  impress  of  Paul's  wonderful  mind." 
Dr.  J.  S.  Howson,  the  biographer  of  Paul,  after  a  lifetime 


22  The  Temple  Bible,  Ephesians,  p.  xv. 


398  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

given  to  the  study  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  said,  "No  one  but 
Paul  could  have  been  the  writer"  of  Ephesians.  The  conclu- 
sion of  the  article  on  Ephesians  in  the  Standard  Bible  Dic- 
tionary says,  "Ephesians  stands  thus  as  an  almost  necessary 
letter  for  Paul,  in  view  of  the  lines  along  which  his  thought 
was  developing  and  the  increasingly  significant  problems  pre- 
sented by  his  work."  23  Practically  all  of  the  English  com- 
mentators maintain  its  genuineness. 

2.  An  Encyclical.  The  address  to  "the  saints  that  are  at 
Ephesus"  is  found  in  all  the  manuscripts  of  the  epistle,  both 
uncial  and  cursive,  except  three.  It  is  found  also  in  all  the 
versions.  As  far  as  we  know,  the  whole  ancient  church 
except  Marcion — who  calls  this  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodicean s 
— called  the  epistle  by  the  title  to  which  we  are  accustomed, 
"The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians."  However,  there  are  some 
strange  phenomena  in  the  epistle  itself  which  make  us  think 
that  it  cannot  have  been  written  for  the  Ephesians  exclu- 
sively : 

(i)  Paul  had  lived  in  Ephesus  longer  than  in  any  other 
city  visited  by  him  in  his  missionary  labors.  He  must  have 
had  a  host  of  personal  acquaintances  and  friends  in  the 
church  there.  Yet  this  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  has  no  per- 
sonal greetings  of  any  kind.  He  has  several  personal  salu- 
tations in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  though  he  never  had 
been  in  Colossae.  He  has  a  score  and  more  of  personal  salu- 
tations at  the  close  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  though  he 
never  had  been  as  far  west  as  Rome.  Possibly  the  very  fact 
that  he  had  such  a  multitude  of  friends  in  Ephesus  might 
prevent  him  from  choosing  among  them  any  to  whom  per- 
sonal greetings  should  be  sent.  Yet  it  seems  strange  that  he 
should  not  mention  any  names  in  a  letter  written  to  a  church 
where  he  had  been  so  long  at  home  among  them. 

(2)  Findlay  points  out  the  fact  that  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians  "there  is  an  official  distance  and  formality  in  the 


23  Standard  Bible  Dictionary,  p.  215. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS         399 

writer's  attitude,  such  as  we  find  in  no  other  epistle,  and 
very  different  from  Paul's  manner  toward  his  disciples  and 
friends.  Not  once  does  he  address  his  readers  as  'brethren' 
or  'beloved.'  There  is  not  a  single  word  of  familiarity  or 
endearment  in  the  whole  letter.  The  benediction  at  the  end 
is  given  in  the  third  person,  not  in  the  second  as  everywhere 
else :  Peace  be  to  the  brethren,  Grace  be  with  all  that  love 
our  Lord — not,  Grace  be  with  you."  2i  This  seems  exceed- 
ingly strange  if  Paul  were  writing  to  the  Ephesians  alone. 

(3)  There  are  several  passages  in  the  epistle  in  which 
Paul  speaks  as  if  he  knew  about  his  readers  only  by  hearsay 
and  as  if  they  knew  about  him  and  his  preaching  only  by 
hearsay.  In  1.  15  he  says  that  he  has  heard  of  their  faith 
in  the  Lord  Jesus  and  the  faith  which  they  show  toward 
all  the  saints.  In  3.  2  he  puts  the  possibility  of  their  hav- 
ing heard  of  his  apostleship  to  the  Gentiles  hypothetically — 
"If  so  be  ye  have  heard  of  the  dispensation  of  the  grace 
of  God  which  was  given  me  to  you-ward."  In  4.  20,  21 
Paul  says,  "Ye  did  not  so  learn  Christ ;  if  so  be  that  ye 
heard  him,  and  were  taught  in  him,  even  as  truth  is  in  Jesus." 
Surely,  Paul  never  would  have  addressed  the  Ephesians  as 
if  he  were  uncertain  whether  the  truth  had  been  preached 
to  them  or  as  if  they  were  personally  unknown  to  him  or  he 
to  them. 

(4)  With  these  facts  in  mind  we  go  back  to  our  manu- 
scripts of  the  epistle,  and  we  find  that  the  two  oldest  and 
most  authoritative  among  them,  Sinaiticus  and  Vaticanus, 
omit  the  address  to  the  Ephesians.  The  same  thing  is  true 
of  cursive  67. 

(5)  The  testimony  of  these  oldest  manuscripts  is  greatly 
strengthened  by  that  of  the  church  Fathers.  Origen  in  the 
third  century  comments  upon  the  greeting  and  gives  a  meta- 
physical sense  to  the  phrase,  omitting  any  local  designa- 
tion.    Basil  in  the  fourth  century  says  that  the  address  to 


24  Findlay,  The  Epistles  of  Paul,  p.  180. 


400  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

the  Ephesians  was  omitted  in  the  ancient  copies  of  the 
epistle  and  according  to  the  tradition  of  the  scholars  who 
had  preceded  him.  Jerome  in  the  fifth  century  also  is  aware 
of  a  text  reading  as  Origen  read,  "to  the  saints  who  are, 
being  also  faithful."  The  upshot  of  all  this  is  that  we  have 
no  evidence  that  the  two  words,  h>  *E0£<tw  at  Ephesus,  were 
in  the  Greek  text  of  the  first  three  centuries. 

Here,  then,  are  the  two  opposing  facts — that  the  early 
church  always  seems  to  have  called  this  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  while  there  are  certain  phenomena  in  the  epistle 
itself  and  certain  facts  in  the  manuscript  and  patristic  evi- 
dence which  seem  to  indicate  that  the  epistle  could  not  have 
been  written  primarily  or  exclusively  to  the  church  at 
Ephesus.  What  is  the  explanation  of  these  seeming  contra- 
dictions? It  was  suspected  by  Beza,  but  first  formulated 
and  fully  developed  by  Archbishop  Ussher  in  1650- 1654. 
He  suggested  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  was  an  encyc- 
lical, a  sort  of  general  epistle  to  all  of  the  churches  of  Asia, 
carried  by  Tychicus  along  with  the  epistles  to  Philemon  and 
to  the  Colossians  eastward  from  Rome.  Tychicus  would 
land  at  Ephesus,  and  the  church  there  would  read  the  epistle 
first.  Then  Tychicus  would  carry  the  letter  on  to  Laodicea 
and  leave  it  there  while  he  hastened  on  to  Colossae.  The 
Colossians  were  asked  in  their  epistle  to  send  to  Laodicea 
for  it.  Marcion  called  it  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans  be- 
cause of  this  reference  in  the  Colossians  and  because  this 
epistle  really  was  at  Laodicea  and  belonged  to  that  church 
as  much  as  any  other  of  the  churches  in  proconsular  Asia. 
The  church  in  general,  however,  preferred  to  call  it  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  because  Ephesus  was  the  chief 
city  in  the  district  addressed,  and  the  church  at  Ephesus  was 
the  largest  and  most  important  of  the  churches  addressed, 
and  the  epistle  had  been  first  received  and  read  there  and 
forwarded  from  that  center  to  all  the  other  churches  con- 
cerned. 

This  hypothesis  is  accepted   very  generally  to-day.      It 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        401 

would  explain  the  textual  and  the  internal  phenomena.  A 
blank  might  have  been  left  in  the  original  manuscript  for  the 
insertion  of  the  name  of  whatsoever  individual  church  might 
receive  the  epistle ;  and  such  an  apostolical  encyclical  would 
omit  all  local  references  and  personal  greetings  and  would 
be  carried  into  regions  where  Paul  never  had  been  and  where 
its  readers  would  know  of  him  only  by  report.  This  en- 
cyclical character  of  the  letter  is  recognized  by  Bengel, 
Neander,  Harless,  Olshausen,  Reuss,  Ellicott,  Light  foot, 
Hort,  Weiss,  Godet,  Beet,  Salmond,  Abbott,  Sabatier,  Find- 
lay,  Shaw,  and  many  others.  We  call  this  epistle  the  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians,  but  it  really  is  an  epistle  to  the  general 
church.  Christ  and  his  church  is  the  theme ;  and  it  has  a 
message  for  the  whole  church  in  all  time. 

VII.  Estimates  of  the  Epistle 

We  read  in  the  book  of  Acts  that  the  Ephesians  were  led 
by  Paul's  ministry  among  them  to  burn  up  their  books  of 
sorcery,  and  the  estimated  value  of  that  holocaust  is  put  at 
fifty  thousand  drachmas,  or  nearly  ten  thousand  dollars. 
Probably  as  literature  all  those  books  were  to  be  counted 
as  trash.  The  Ephesians  were  well  repaid  when  they 
received  this  epistle.  Its  value  cannot  be  computed  in  coin. 
It  is  full  of  the  riches  of  Paul's  intellect  and  of  Christ's  love. 
We  note  some  of  the  estimates  put  upon  it  by  those  who 
have  studied  it  most  thoroughly  and  so  have  come  to  appre- 
ciate it  most  highly.  1.  Chrysostom:  "This  epistle  overflows 
with  lofty  thoughts  and  doctrines.  .  .  .  Things  which  Paul 
scarcely  anywhere  else  utters,  he  here  expounds."  2. 
Luther:  "It  is  one  of  the  noblest  books  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  shows  thee  Christ  and  teaches  thee  every- 
thing which  it  is  necessary  and  good  for  thee  to  know, 
even  though  thou  shouldest  never  see  or  hear  of  any 
other  book  or  doctrine."  Luther  was  likely  to  indulge  in 
emphatic  and  sometimes  extravagant  statement,  but  here 
most   of   us   will   agree   that   he   is    well    within   the   truth. 


402  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

3.  Witsius:  "It  is  a  divine  epistle  glowing  with  the  flame 
of  Christian  love,  and  the  splendor  of  holy  light,  and 
flowing  with  fountains  of  living  water."  4.  Grotius:  "It 
equals  its  sublimity  of  ideas  with  words  more  sublime 
than  any  human  language  ever  possessed."  5.  Coleridge : 
"In  this,  the  divinest  composition  of  man,  is  every  doc- 
trine of  Christianity ;  first,  those  doctrines  peculiar  to  Chris- 
tianity ;  and,  secondly,  those  precepts  common  to  it  with 
natural  religion."  6.  Alford:  "As  the  wonderful  effect  of 
the  Spirit  of  inspiration  on  the  mind  of  man  is  nowhere  in 
Scripture  more  evident  than  in  this  epistle,  so,  to  discern 
those  things  of  the  Spirit,  is  the  spiritual  mind  here  more 
than  anywhere  required.  ...  It  is  the  most  heavenly  work 
of  one  whose  very  imagination  is  peopled  with  things  in  the 
heavens,  and  even  his  fancy  rapt  into  the  visions  of  God." 

7.  Maurice:  "Everyone  must  be  conscious  of  an  overflowing 
fullness  in  the  style  of  this  epistle,  as  if  the  apostle's  mind 
could  not  contain  the  thoughts  that  were  at  work  in  him, 
as  if  each  one  that  he  uttered  had  a  luminous  train  before  it 
and  behind  it,   from  which  it  could  not  disengage  itself." 

8.  Adolphe  Monod :  "It  embraces  in  its  brevity  the  whole 
field  of  the  Christian  religion,  expounding  now  its  doctrines, 
now  its  morals  with  such  conciseness  and  such  fullness  com- 
bined that  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  any  great  doctrine 
or  any  essential  duty  which  has  not  its  place  marked  in  it." 

9.  Ellicott :  "The  difficulties  of  the  first  chapter  are  so  great 
and  so  deep  that  the  most  exact  language  and  the  most  dis- 
criminating analysis  are  too  poor  and  too  weak  to  convey 
the  force  or  the  connection  of  expressions  so  august  and 
thoughts  so  unspeakably  profound."  10.  Riddle:  "It  is  the 
greatness  of  the  epistle  which  makes  it  so  difficult ;  the 
thought  seems  to  struggle  with  the  words,  which  seem  insuf- 
ficient to  convey  the  transcendent  idea."  11.  Pierson  :  "This 
epistle  reaches  the  summit  of  the  sublimity  of  revelation. 
It  is  Paul's  third-heaven  epistle.  In  it  he  soars  from  the 
depths  of  ruin  to  the  heights  of  redemption."     12.  Farrar: 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        403 

"In  the  depth  of  its  theology,  in  the  loftiness  of  its  morals, 
in  the  way  in  which  the  simplest  moral  truths  are  based  upon 
the  profoundest  religious  doctrines — this  epistle  is  unparal- 
leled. ...  It  is  the  most  sublime,  the  most  profound,  the 
most  advanced  and  final  utterance  of  Paul's  gospel  to  the 
Gentiles."  13.  Salmond:  "With  few  exceptions  scholars  of 
all  different  schools  who  have  studied  and  interpreted  this 
epistle  have  been  at  one  in  regarding  it  as  one  of  the  sublim- 
est  and  most  profound  of  all  the  New  Testament  writings. 
In  the  judgment  of  many  who  are  well  entitled  to  deliver 
an  opinion,  it  is  the  grandest  of  all  the  Pauline  letters.  There 
is  a  peculiar  and  a  sustained  loftiness  in  its  teaching  which 
has  deeply  impressed  the  greatest  minds  and  has  earned 
for  it  the  title  of  'The  Epistle  of  the  Ascension.'  It  tarries 
largely  among  the  heavenlies,  and  lifts  us  into  the  eter- 
nities a  parte  ante  and  a  parte  post."  14.  Among  the 
unsympathetic  critics  who  are  the  "exceptions"  we  may 
mention  De  Wette,  Baur,  Holtzmann,  and  Renan.  They 
speak  of  it  as  "verbose,  diffuse,  overloaded,  monotonous, 
and  repetitious."  Renan  calls  the  epistle  une  epitre  banale — 
a  third-rate  composition.  Motile  comments  upon  this  judg- 
ment as  follows:  "The  criticism,  read  in  the  light,  first,  of 
the  epistle  itself,  then  in  the  verdict  of  all  Christendom, 
can  only  convict  the  subtle  literary  critic  of  a  spiritual 
paralysis  which  fatally  affects  even  literary  insight  where 
the  theme  is  spiritual."  2F> 

VIII.  Differences  between  the  Prison  Epistles  and 
the  Former  Ones 

1.  The  former  epistles  were  written  while  Paul  was  in 
the  thick  of  the  fight.  He  was  an  evangelist  and  a  mission- 
ary and  a  church  founder  and  a  controversialist  and  a 
preacher.  He  was  at  the  height  of  his  activity  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  turmoil  and  battle.     His  letters  had  been  mere 


25  Moule,  Ephesian  Studies,  p.  15. 


404  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

incidents  in  his  missionary  labors.  They  were  struck  off 
at  white  heat.  They  were  samples  of  his  arguments  with 
his  antagonists  and  paragraphs  taken  out  of  his  most  service- 
able sermons.  They  were  full  of  fire  and  energy  and  knock- 
down blows.  In  these  prison  epistles  there  is  a  gentler  spirit. 
They  come  out  of  a  quieter  life  and  a  calmer  atmosphere. 
Paul  has  his  parchments  about  him,  and  he  has  plenty  of 
time  to  read  them  and  to  meditate  upon  them.  We  have  here 
the  products  of  the  sage  rather  than  the  soldier.  Paul  is 
less  of  a  debater  and  more  of  a  philosopher.  The  evangelist 
has  become  a  pastor.  He  is  bent  upon  preserving  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  labors.  In  Colossians  and  Ephesians  the  fire 
and  fervor  and  aggressive  zeal  of  Galatians  and  Corinthians 
has  become  conservative,  careful,  and  faithful  ministration 
to  the  flock.  The  evangelization  of  sinners  has  given  place 
to  the  edification  of  the  saints. 

2.  The  former  epistles  were  written  from  Greek  cities. 
The  prison  epistles  are  written  in  Rome.  The  apostle's 
environment  always  seems  to  have  had  its  effect  upon  his 
writing.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  distinctive  char- 
acteristic of  Greek  thought  was  the  sacredness  of  the  individ- 
ual and  that  the  former  Pauline  epistles  deal  with  the  indi- 
vidual, directing  him  to  the  true  freedom  and  the  true 
wisdom.  On  the  other  hand,  Rome  represented  to  the  world 
the  greatness  of  the  community,  of  the  family,  the  state,  and 
the  race ;  and  the  prison  epistles  face  that  great  Roman 
problem — the  unification  of  the  family,  the  state,  and  the 
race — and  Paul  solves  the  problem  by  saying  that  it  is  not 
to  be  accomplished  by  law  or  by  might,  but  "in  Christ."  In 
the  imperial  city  there  grows  upon  him  the  vision  of  a 
world-wide  City  of  God.  At  the  center  of  the  empire  he 
becomes  an  imperialist  in  even  a  larger  sense  than  before. 
I  It'  sees  the  endless  and  limitless  sovereignty  of  Christ  tran- 
scending any  possible  splendor  or  power  of  an  empire  like 
Rome.  It  loo  would  have  a  king,  as  unlike  the  emperor  at 
Rome  as  could  be  imagined.     It  too  would  have  its  soldiers, 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  EPHESIANS        405 

as  unlike  the  legionaries  of  Rome  as  could  be  imagined.  It 
too  would  gather  into  itself  all  the  nations  until  in  and 
through  the  church  it  had  unified  the  universe.  This  wider 
range  of  thought  and  greater  emphasis  upon  the  supremacy 
of  Christ  is  apparent  in  Colossians  and  Ephesians  and  Philip- 
pians,  in  all  the  church  epistles  of  this  Roman  imprisonment. 

3.  There  is  a  corresponding  change  in  the  characteristic 
phrases  of  the  two  groups  of  epistles.  "Justification  by 
faith"  is  replaced  by  "salvation  through  grace."  "Christ 
crucified"  was  heard  before,  and  now  it  is  "Christ  living 
in  us."  It  was  all  "through  Christ"  in  the  earlier  epistles, 
and  now  it  is  all  "in  Christ."  Christ  and  his  Cross  was  the 
former  theme,  and  now  the  theme  is  Christ  and  his  Church. 
The  blood  of  Jesus  is  mentioned  once,26  and  the  cross  is 
mentioned  once.27  Otherwise  there  is  no  reference  to  the 
death  of  Christ  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

4.  There  is  a  change  in  Paul's  personal  attitude  toward  the 
church.  In  the  former  epistles  he  was  more  or  less  on  the 
defensive.  His  authority  was  being  questioned.  His  repu- 
tation was  undergoing  continuous  assault.  Now  his  position 
is  assured.  His  character  is  established.  His  authority  is 
supreme.  He  is  an  acknowledged  martyr  for  the  faith,  the 
chief  of  the  apostolic  company.  He  feels  secure  in  the  affec- 
tions and  the  reverence  of  the  church.  lie  writes  these 
letters  of  the  third  group  without  any  of  the  painful  solici- 
tude for  his  personal  reputation  so  manifest  in  the  second 
group.  With  the  calm  dignity  of  a  father  to  whom  his  chil- 
dren look  for  light  on  all  problems  he  here  expounds  the 
faith. 


26Eph.  1.  7. 
»  Eph.  2.  16. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS1 

I.  The  City  of  Philippi 

Philippi  was  a  Macedonian  city,  situated  about  eight 
miles  inland  from  the  /Egean  sea,  on  the  borders  of  Thrace. 
Its  seaport  was  Neapolis ;  and  from  Neapolis  the  great  mili- 
tary highway,  the  Via  Egnatia,  ran  northward  to  the  single 
pass  among  the  peaks  of  the  Pangseus.  Philippi  was  built  on 
the  slopes  of  the  hill  just  opposite  this  pass,  and  the  Egnatian 
highway  ran  through  its  marketplace.  Beyond  Philippi  to 
the  west  lay  the  large  and  fertile  plain  of  Drama,  filled  with 
springs  and  trickling  streams;  and  in  the  center  of  this  plain 
was  the  marshy  Lake  Cercinitis.  The  original  name  of  the 
city  was  Crenides,  which  means  "The  Fountains"  or  "The 
Springs,"  and  that  name  probably  came  from  the  numerous 
springs  of  the  neighboring  plain.  King  Philip  of  Macedon, 
the  father  of  Alexander  the  Great,  recognized  its  strategic 
position  and  made  it  a  frontier  fortress.  In  its  neighborhood 
were  famous  gold  and  silver  mines  which  King  Philip  de- 
veloped and  from  which  he  drew  the  wealth  which  made  his 
military  establishment  and  achievements  possible.  The  city 
grew  like  San  Francisco,  and  the  treasures  of  the  mines 
maintained  it  in  a  marvelous  development.  Philip  named 
each  of  the  springs  about  the  city  after  himself.  "Philip,"  and 
all  of  them  together,  "the  Philips,"  and  the  city  took  this 
plural  name,  Philippi.  This  was  in  the  fourth  century  B.  C. 
The  mines  were  exhausted  before  the  Christian  era  began, 

1  A  portion  of  this  discussion  was  prepared  for  the  International 
Standard  Bible  Encyclopaedia  and  has  been  incorporated  here  by- 
permission. 

409 


410  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

but  the  city  had  become  an  important  military  and  commer- 
cial center.  All  the  commerce  between  the  East  and  the 
West  followed  the  Egnatian  highway  through  the  mountain 
pass  to  Philippi,  and  in  its  markets  the  life  of  Asia  and 
Europe  came  into  contact  with  each  other. 

On  the  plain  of  Philippi,  in  B.  C.  42,  Brutus  and  Cassius 
were  defeated  and  all  hopes  of  the  old  Roman  republic  came 
to  an  end.  Mark  Antony  and  Octavian  saved  the  day  for 
the  Caesars,  and  the  emperor  Augustus,  needing  some  place 
to  locate  the  soldiers  who  had  served  out  their  time  in  the 
army,  chose  Philippi,  the  scene  of  the  great  victory,  as  one 
site  worthy  of  the  honor.  He  made  it  a  Roman  military 
colony  and  called  it  Colonia  Augusta  Julia  Philippcnsis,  as 
a  memorial  to  the  murdered  Julius  Caesar.  He  conferred 
upon  it  the  Jus  Italicum,  which  meant  that  its  colonists  had 
the  right  of  constitutional  government  and  were  not  subject 
to  the  provincial  governor,  and  that  they  were  exempt  from 
all  direct  taxation  in  either  poll  or  property  taxes,  and  that 
they  were  privileged  to  hold  and  convey  landed  estates 
according  to  the  regulations  of  the  Roman  law.  These  were 
most  exceptional  privileges  for  any  Macedonian  city  to 
possess,  and  Philippi  became  a  ''miniature  likeness  of 
Rome."  It  was  proud  of  its  Roman  citizenship,  and  with 
its  public  baths  and  theaters  and  its  worship  of  Silvanus 
and  Dionysus  and  Diana  it  aped  the  cosmopolitan  character 
of  Rome  itself.  More  than  half  its  people  were  Latin  by 
race,  but  there  was  a  sturdy  minority  of  the  old  Mace- 
donian stock,  and  a  sprinkling  of  many  other  nationalities 
attracted  by  the  military  and  commercial  importance  of  the 
place.    Among  these  there  were  a  few  Jews. 

II.  Paul  and  Philippi 

Paul  was  on  his  second  missionary  journey  in  the  year 
A.  D.  52.  He  felt  that  he  was  strangely  thwarted  in  many 
of  his  plans.  He  had  a  most  distressing  illness  in  Galatia. 
The  Spirit  would  not  permit  him  to  preach  in  Asia,  and 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS      411 

when  he  essayed  to  enter  Bithynia  the  Spirit  again  would 
not  suffer  it.  Baffled  and  perplexed,  the  apostle  with  his 
two  companions,  Silas  and  Timothy,  went  on  to  the  seacoast 
and  stopped  in  Troas.  Here  at  last  his  leading  became 
dear.    A  vision  of  a  man  from  Macedonia  convinced  him 

thai    it    was   the    will   of   God    that    he   should    preach    in    the 

western  continent  of  Europe.    The  way  was  opened  at  once. 

The    winds    were     favorable.       In     two    days    he    <; -    in 

Ncapolis.  It  took  him  five  days  to  make  the  return  dip  at 
a  later  time.  Tan!  followed  the  hroad  paved  way  of  the  Via 
Egnatia  Up  to  the  mountain  pass,  and  down  on  the  other 
side  to    Philippi.      Mere  he  learned   that    there  was  no  syn;i- 

gogue,  bul  thai  the  little  compan)  of  Jews  gathered  f<>r  Sab- 
bath worship  at  a  place  of  prayer  ahont  a  mile  to  the  west 
of  the  city  gate  on  the  shore  of  the  river  Gangites.    It  was 

the  site  of  the  old  battlefield  upon  which  the  empire  had  heen 

won,  and  here  Paul  opened  his  missionary  campaign  for  the 
conversion  of   Europe.     A  greater  conqueror  than   Mark 

Antony  had  come  to  the  old  scene  of  strife,  and  greater  vic- 
tory was  to  he  achieved.  A  mightier  empire  was  to  he 
founded  than  that  of  the  emperor   Augustus. 

There  was  only  a  little  company  of  women  worshiping 
there  that  day,  bul  their  hearts  were  strangely  stirred  by 
Paul's  message;  and  the  Lord  opened  the  heart  of  one 
woman,    Lydia,    a    seller    of    purple    ami    a    foreigner    from 

Thyatira,  to  give  heed  unto  the  things  which  were  spoken 
by  him.2  A  ///<///  had  summoned  Paul  to  Macedonia  in  the 
vision.  Paul  went  to  Macedonia  and  found  ;i  woman  first 
of  all.  The  man  from  Macedonia  had  'aid,  "(  onie  over 
and  help  us,"  but  the  woman  who  was  the  first  European 
COnverl    was  no    Macedonian   hut    an    Asiatic,   resident    there 

in    Philippi   simply    for  commercial   purposes.     That   was 

only  the  beginning,  however.  (  )thers  were  converted,  and 
a    Christian    church    was     founded.       Paul    and    Silas,    im 

2  Acts  1 6.  14. 


412  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

prisoned,  were  released  by  an  earthquake,  the  Roman  jailer 
and  his  family  were  added  to  the  believers,  and  then  the 
magistrates  besought  Paul  and  his  companions  to  leave  the 
town.  They  had  a  final  meeting  with  the  brethren  in  the 
home  of  Lydia,  and  departed.3 

Philip  of  Macedon  had  gathered  his  gold  here  and  laid 
the  solid  foundations  of  the  Macedonian  supremacy  which 
Alexander  extended  into  a  world  empire.  Paul  had  gathered 
greater  riches  than  Philip,  and  he  had  laid  the  foundations 
of  an  empire  more  extensive  and  more  enduring  than  that 
of  Alexander.  It  was  here  that  he  had  his  first  experience 
of  a  Roman  scourging  and  lay  for  the  first  time  in  the  stocks 
of  a  Roman  prison.  Yet  he  went  away  rejoicing,  for  he 
had  won  the  devotion  of  loyal  and  loving  hearts  for  himself 
and  his  Master.  That  was  worth  all  the  persecution  and  the 
pain.  Philippi  had  become  world  famous  again,  as  the  site 
of  the  first  Christian  church  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
Originally  it  had  been  called  Crenides,  "The  Fountains"  or 
"The  Springs,"  and  now  it  was  to  justify  that  name  again, 
as  the  fountainhead  of  European  Christendom.  That  is  its 
greatest  historical  interest  for  us  to-day. 

III.  Characteristics  of  the  Church  at  Philippi 

i.  It  seems  to  be  the  least  Jewish  of  all  the  Pauline 
churches.  There  were  few  Jews  in  Philippi.  No  Hebrew 
names  are  found  in  the  list  of  converts  in  this  church  men- 
tioned in  the  New  Testament.  The  Jewish  opponents  of 
Paul  never  seem  to  have  established  themselves  in  this  com- 
munity. There  is  one  paragraph  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  chapter  of  the  epistle  which  seems  to  be  aimed  at  these, 
but  it  is  a  note  of  warning  against  them  as  possible  intruders 
rather  than  a  direct  attack  upon  those  already  present.  They 
were  likely  to  appear  anywhere  among  the  Pauline  converts, 
but  as  far  as  we  know  they  had  not  cultivated  the  Philippian 
field  as  yet  or  at  least  had  not  had  any  success  there. 
3  Acts  1 6.  16-40. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS      413 

2.  Women  seem  to  be  unusually  prominent  in  the  history 
of  this  church,  and  this  is  consistent  with  what  we  know  con- 
cerning the  position  accorded  to  women  in  Macedonian  so- 
ciety. Lydia  brings  her  whole  family  with  her  into  the 
church.  She  must  have  been  a  very  influential  woman,  and 
her  own  fervor  and  devotion  and  generosity  and  hospitality 
seem  to  have  been  contagious  and  to  have  become  charac- 
teristic of  the  whole  Christian  community.  Euodia  and 
Syntyche  are  mentioned  in  the  epistle,  two  women  who  were 
fellow  laborers  with  Paul  in  the  gospel,  for  both  of  whom 
he  has  great  respect,  of  both  of  whom  he  is  sure  that  their 
names  are  written  in  the  book  of  life ;  but  who  seem  to  have 
differed  with  each  other  in  some  matter  of  opinion.  Paul 
exhorts  them  to  be  of  the  same  mind  in  the  Lord.4  Good 
women  have  made  so  much  trouble  in  the  church.  Some- 
times it  is  so  difficult  for  them  to  see  things  the  same  way. 
Yet  the  church  would  never  be  able  to  get  along  without 
them,  though  sometimes  it  seems  hard  to  get  along  with 
them.  We  sympathize  with  Paul's  prayer  that  the  good 
women  of  the  church  may  keep  at  peace  among  themselves. 
The  prominence  of  the  women  in  the  congregation  at  Phil- 
ippi  or  the  dominance  of  Lydia's  influence  among  them  may 
account  for  the  fact  that  they  seem  to  have  been  more  mind- 
ful of  Paul's  comfort  than  any  of  his  other  converts  were. 
Possibly  the  first  Ladies'  Aid  Society  in  Europe  was  organ- 
ized here  at  Philippi,  with  Lydia  as  its  first  president.  They 
raised  money  for  Paul's  support  and  forwarded  it  to  him 
again  and  again.  They  were  anxious  that  he  should  have 
all  that  was  needed.  They  were  willing  to  give  of  their  time 
and  their  means  to  that  end.  There  seem  to  have  been  no 
theological  differences  in  the  Philippian  church.  That  may 
testify  to  the  fact  that  the  most  of  its  members  were  women. 
There  is  one  personal  difference,  and  that  is  between  two 
women. 

*  Phil.  4.  2. 


4M  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

3.  There  were  splendid  men  in  the  church  membership 
too.  Some  of  them  were  Macedonians.  Ilausrath  declares 
that  the  Macedonians  represented  "the  noblest  and  soundest 
part  of  the  ancient  world.  .  .  .  Here  was  none  of  the  shuf- 
fling and  indecision  of  the  Asiatics,  none  of  the  irritable 
vanity  and  uncertain  levity  of  the  Greek  communities.  .  .  . 
They  were  men  of  sterner  mold  than  could  be  found  in 
Asia  Minor  or  languorous  Syria.  The  material  was  harder 
to  work  in,  and  offered  more  stubborn  resistance;  but  the 
work,  once  done,  endured.  A  new  Macedonian  phalanx  of 
Pauline  Christians  was  formed  here.  .  .  .  Manliness,  loy- 
alty, firmness,  their  characteristics  in  general  history,  are 
equally  their  characteristics  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church.  .  .  .  They  were  always  true  to  Paul,  always 
obedient,  always  helpful."  5  Paul  rejoiced  in  them.  They 
were  spirits  congenial  with  his  own. 

Doubtless  some  of  these  converts  were  Roman  veterans, 
trained  in  the  Roman  wars  to  hardness  and  discipline  and 
loyalty.  They  were  Roman  citizens  and  proud  of  that  fact. 
When  Paul  and  Silas  first  had  appeared  among  them  they 
had  said,  "These  men,  being  Jews,  do  set  forth  customs 
which  it  is  not  lawful  for  us  to  receive,  we  being  Romans."  G 
Afterward  Paul  and  Silas  had  convinced  them  that,  though 
Jews,  they  were  just  as  much  Roman  citizens  as  the  Philip- 
pians  themselves;  and  the  doctrines  they  taught  were  per- 
fectly consistent  with  Roman  citizenship.  In  the  epistle 
Paul  exhorts  them  to  behave  as  citizens  worthily  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ,7  and  he  reminds  them  that  though  they 
were  proud  of  their  Roman  citizenship — and  so  was  he — 
they  all  had  become  members  of  a  heavenly  commonwealth 
in  which  citizenship  was  a  much  greater  boon  than  even  the 
Jus  Italicum  had  been.  Later  Paul  states  the  fact  again, 
"Our  citizenship  is  in  heaven ;"  8  and  he  goes  on  to  remind 
them  that  their  King  is  seated  there  upon  the  throne  and 

5Hausrath,  op.  cit.,  Ill,  pp.  203,  204.         7  Phil.  1.  27. 
6  Acts  16.  20,  21.  B  Phil.  3-  2°- 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIAXS       415 

that  he  is  coming  again  to  establish  a  glorious  empire,  for 
he  has  power  to  subject  all  things  unto  himself. 

It  is  to  these  old  soldiers  and  athletes  that  Paul  addresses 
his  military  and  gymnastic  figures  of  speech.  He  informs 
them  that  the  whole  praetorian  guard  had  heard  of  the  gospel 
through  his  imprisonment  at  Rome.9  He  sends  them  greet- 
ings from  the  saints  who  are  Caesar's  household.10  He 
prays  that  he  may  hear  of  them  that  they  stand  fast  like 
an  immovable  phalanx,  with  one  soul  striving  athletically 
for  the  faith  of  the  gospel.11  He  knows  that  they  will  be 
fearless  and  brave,  in  nothing  affrighted  by  the  adver- 
saries.12 He  speaks  of  his  own  experience  as  a  wrestling 
match,  a  conflict  or  contest.13  He  joys  in  the  sacrifice  and 
service  of  their  faith.14  He  calls  Epaphroditus  not  only  his 
fellow  worker  but  his  fellow  soldier.15  He  likens  the  Chris- 
tian life  to  a  race  in  which  he  presses  on  toward  the  goal 
unto  the  prize.16  He  asks  the  Philippians  to  keep  even, 
soldierly  step  with  him  in  the  Christian  walk.17  These 
metaphors  have  their  appeal  to  an  athletic  and  military  race, 
and  they  bear  their  testimony  to  the  high  regard  which  Paul 
had  for  this  type  of  Christianity  and  for  those  in  whose 
lives  it  was  displayed. 

We  do  not  know  the  names  of  many  of  these  men,  for 
only  Clement  and  Epaphroditus  are  mentioned  here;  but 
we  gather  much  concerning  their  spirit  from  this  epistle,  and 
we  are  as  sure  as  Paul  himself  that  their  names  are  all 
written  in  the  book  of  life.18 

4.  If  the  constituent  elements  of  the  church  membership 
at  Philippi  fairly  represented  the  various  elements  of  the 
population  of  the  city,  they  must  have  been  cosmopolitan  in 
character.     Philippi  was  an  old  Greek  city  which  had  been 


•Phil.  1.  13.  "Phil.  2.  17. 

10  Phil.  4.  22.  ,s  Phil.  2.  25. 

"Phil.  1.  27.  "Phil.  3.  14. 

12  Phil.  1.  28.  "Phil.  3.  16. 

"Phil.  1.  30.  "Phil.  4.  3. 


416  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

turned  into  a  Roman  colony.  It  was  both  Greek  and  Roman 
in  its  characteristics.  Christianity  had  been  introduced  here 
by  two  Jews  who  were  Roman  citizens  and  a  Jewish  son  of 
a  Gentile  father.  In  the  account  given  of  the  founding  of 
the  church  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Acts  three  converts 
are  mentioned,  and  one  is  a  Jewish  proselyte  from  Asia, 
one  a  native  Greek,  and  one  a  Roman  official.  The  later 
converts  doubtless  represented  the  same  diversity  of  nation- 
ality and  the  same  differences  in  spcial  position.  Yet,  apart 
from  those  two  good  women,  Euodia  and  Syntyche,  they 
all  were  of  one  mind  in  the  Lord.  It  is  a  remarkable  proof 
of  the  fact  that  in  Christ  all  racial  and  social  conditions  may 
be  brought  into  harmony  and  made  to  live  together  in  peace. 

5.  They  were  a  very  liberal  people.  First  of  all,  they  gave 
themselves  to  the  Lord  and  to  Paul,19  and  they  seemed  to 
think  that  that  giving  included  their  pocketbooks  and  their 
property.  Whenever  they  could  help  Paul  or  further  the 
work  of  the  gospel  they  gave  gladly  and  willingly  and  up 
to  the  limit  of  their  resources ;  and  then  they  hypothecated 
their  credit  and  gave  beyond  their  power.20  Even  Paul  was 
astonished  at  their  giving.  He  declares  that  they  gave  out 
their  bounty,  and  that  they  were  rich  only  in  their  liberality.-1 
Surely,  these  are  unusual  encomiums.  The  Philippians  must 
have  been  a  very  unusual  and  remarkable  people.  If  the 
depth  of  one's  consecration  and  the  reality  of  one's  religion 
of  much  affliction  and  deep  poverty,  that  they  abounded  in 
are  to  be  measured  by  the  extent  to  which  they  affect  the 
disposition  of  one's  material  possessions,  if  one  measure 
of  Christian  love  is  to  be  found  in  Christian  giving,  then 
the  Philippians  may  well  stand  supreme  among  the  saints 
in  the  Pauline  churches. 

Paul  seems  to  have  loved  them  most.  He  loved  them 
enough  to  allow  them  to  contribute   toward   his   support. 

19  2  Cor.  8.  5. 

20  2  Cor.  8.  3. 

21  2  Cor.  8.  2. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       417 

Elsewhere  he  refused  any  help  of  this  sort,  and  steadfastly 
adhered  to  his  plan  of  self-support  while  he  was  preaching 
the  gospel.  He  made  the  single  exception  in  the  case  of  the 
Philippians.  He  must  have  been  sure  of  their  affection  and 
of  their  confidence.  He  knew  that  they  would  not  grudge 
their  gifts  and  they  never  would  be  suspicious  of  him  in  his 
use  of  them.  He  could  trust  them  fully  because  they 
trusted  him  fully.  Four  times  they  gave  Paul  pecuniary  aid. 
Twice  they  sent  him  their  contributions  just  after  he  had 
left  them  and  gone  on  to  Thessalonica.22  When  Paul  had 
gone  still  farther  to  Corinth,  and  was  in  want  during  his 
ministry  there,  his  heart  was  gladdened  by  the  visitation  of 
brethren  from  Philippi,  who  supplied  the  measure  of  his 
need.23  It  was  not  a  first  enthusiasm,  forgotten  as  soon 
as  the  engaging  personality  of  the  apostle  was  removed  from 
their  sight.  It  was  not  merely  a  personal  attachment  which 
prompted  their  gifts.  They  gave  to  their  own  dear  apostle, 
but  only  that  he  might  minister  to  others  as  he  had  minis- 
tered to  them.  He  was  their  living  link  with  the  work  in 
the  mission  field. 

Years  passed  by  and  the  Philippians  heard  that  Paul  was 
in  the  prison  at  Rome  and  again  in  need  of  their  help. 
Eleven  years  are  enough  to  make  quite  radical  changes  in 
a  church  membership ;  but  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
change  in  the  loyalty  and  the  liberality  of  the  Philippian 
church  in  that  time.  The  Philippians  hastened  to  send 
Epaphroditus  to  Rome  with  their  contributions  and  their 
greetings.  It  was  like  a  bouquet  of  fresh  flowers  in  the 
prison  cell.  Paul  writes  this  epistle  to  thank  them  that  their 
thought  for  him  had  blossomed  afresh  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity they  had  had.24 

Paul  probably  had  written  them  his  acknowledgment  for 


22  Phil.  4.  15,  16. 

23  2  Cor.  11.  8,  9. 

24  Phil.  4.  10,  avedaAtre. 


4i8  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

each  of  their  other  gifts,  but  his  other  letters  to  the  Philip- 
pians  have  been  lost.  Polycarp  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Philip- 
pians  mentions  the  fact  that  Paul  had  written  a  number  of 
letters  to  them.25  The  Philippians  not  only  gave  their 
money  to  Paul  himself  but  to  others  for  whom  he  asked  it. 
They  knew  him  and  loved  him,  but  they  gave  to  those  whom 
they  did  not  know  and  whom  they  had  no  especial  reason 
to  love,  simply  because  he  had  asked  for  their  contributions. 
They  were  a  remarkably  liberal  people.  They  gave  all  they 
could  whenever  they  could.  They  gave  beyond  their  power, 
and  rejoiced  in  the  privilege.  Their  poverty  did  not  prevent 
their  giving.  The  riches  of  their  liberality  only  flourished 
in  that  soil.26  They  gave  to  their  own  apostle,  Paul;  and 
they  gave  to  those  who  were  not  particularly  friendly  to 
themselves  or  to  their  apostle. 

Their  astonishingly  generous  contribution  to  the  poor 
saints  at  Jerusalem  was  something  like  a  contribution  raised 
among  the  Methodists  of  Chicago  would  be,  if  it  were  for- 
warded by  their  resident  bishop  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  for  distribution  among  the  Church  of  England 
poor  in  the  city  of  London.  The  primate  might  receive  it 
graciously  and  he  might  not.  He  might  recognize  the  givers 
as  Christian  brethren  and  their  representative  as  a  Christian 
apostle  and  minister  and  he  might  not.  There  was  the  same 
hazard  when  Paul  carried  the  gifts  of  the  Gentile  churches 
to  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem,  and  we  know  how  ungraciously 
he  was  received.  The  Philippians  do  not  seem  to  have  re- 
gretted their  generosity  in  the  least.  If  the  carrying  of  that 
gift  to  Jerusalem  had  landed  Paul  in  jail,  it  was  just 
another  opportunity  for  them  to  take  up  another  collection. 
They  hasten  to  do  it  with  all  cheerfulness  and  with  no  abate- 
ment of  their  liberality.  They  were  a  most  remarkable 
people.    No  wonder  that  Paul  loved  them  and  was  proud  of 


25  Polycarp  ad  Phil.,  iii,  2. 

26  2  Cor.  8.  1-5. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIAXS       419 

them  and  made  their  earnestness  and  sincerity  and  affection 
the  measure  of  comparison  with  the  love  of  others.27 

6.  They  were  Paul's  favorite  church.  He  never  lost  any 
opportunity  of  visiting  them.  Six  years  after  his  first  visit 
he  was  resident  in  Ephesus  and  having  sent  Titus  to  Corinth 
with  a  letter  to  the  Corinthians  about  the  reception  of  which 
he  was  very  doubtful  he  appointed  a  meeting  with  Titus  in 
Macedonia  and  probably  spent  the  anxious  days  of  his  wait- 
ing at  Philippi.  If  he  met  Titus  there,  he  may  have  written 
the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  from  that  city.2s 
Paul  then  returned  to  Ephesus,  and  after  the  riot  in  that  city 
went  over  again  into  Macedonia  and  made  his  third  visit  at 
Philippi.  He  probably  promised  them  at  this  time  that  he 
would  return  to  Philippi  to  celebrate  the  Easter  week  with 
his  beloved  converts.  He  went  on  into  Greece,  but  in  three 
months  he  is  back  again,  at  the  festival  of  the  resurrection 
in  the  year  A.  D.  58. 29  We  read  in  1  Tim.  1.  3  that  Paul 
visited  Macedonia  after  the  Roman  imprisonment.  He 
enjoyed  himself  among  the  Philippians.  They  were  Chris- 
tians after  his  own  heart.  If  they  were  most  sincerely 
attached  to  him,  he  was  just  as  sincerely  attached  to  them. 
He  thanks  God  for  their  fellowship  from  the  first  day 
until  now.30  He  declares  that  they  are  his  beloved  who 
have  always  obeyed,  not  as  in  his  presence  only,  but  much 
more  in  his  absence.31  With  fond  repetition  he  addresses 
them  as  his  "brethren,"  "beloved  and  longed  for,"  his 
"joy  and  crown,"  his  "beloved."  32  Evidently,  they  were 
Paul's  favorite  church,  and  we  can  gather  from  this  epistle 
good  reason  for  this  fact. 

IV.  Characteristics  of  the  Epistle 

1.  It  is  a  letter.  It  is  not  a  treatise,  as  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  First  Epistle 

27  2  Cor.  8.  8.  3°Phil.  1.  5. 

28  2  Cor.  2.  13;  7.  6.  31  Phil.  2.  12. 

29  Acts  20.  2,  6.  32Phil.  4.  I. 


420  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  John  are.  It  is  not  an  encyclical  full  of  general  observa- 
tions and  exhortations  capable  of  application  at  any  time  and 
anywhere,  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Epistle 
of  James  and  the  Epistle  of  Peter  are.  It  is  a  genuine  letter 
to  personal  friends.  It  has  no  theological  discussions  and 
no  rigid  outline  and  no  formal  development.  It  rambles 
along  just  as  any  real  letter  would  with  personal  news  and 
personal  feelings  and  outbursts  of  personal  affection  between 
tried  friends.  It  is  the  most  spontaneous  and  unaffected  of 
the  Pauline  epistles.  It  is  more  epistolary  than  any  of  the 
others.  It  is  the  last  of  Paul's  letters  written  to  a  church, 
and  it  is  written  to  the  first  church  he  had  founded  in 
Europe. 

2.  It  is  a  love  letter.  All  of  the  other  epistles  have  mixed 
feelings  manifest  in  them.  Sometimes  a  feeling  of  grief 
and  of  indignation  is  dominant,  as  in  Second  Corinthians. 
Sometimes  the  uppermost  desire  of  Paul  in  his  writing  seems 
to  be  the  establishment  of  the  truth  and  the  recalling  of  the 
backslider  and  the  strengthening  of  the  believer  whose  faith 
has  been  assailed,  as  in  Galatians  and  Romans.  Always 
more  or  less  fault  is  suggested  in  the  recipients  of  the  warn- 
ings and  exhortations  Paul  feels  compelled  to  write  to  them. 
In  Philippi  alone  there  is  no  fault  to  be  found.  The  only 
suggestion  of  such  a  thing  is  in  the  reference  to  the  differ- 
ence of  opinion  between  Euodia  and  Syntyche ;  and  while 
Paul  thinks  this  ought  to  be  harmonized,  he  does  not  seem 
to  consider  it  any  very  serious  menace  to  the  peace  of  the 
church.  Aside  from  this,  Paul  has  nothing  but  praise  for 
his  beloved  brethren  and  prayer  that  their  love  may  abound 
yet  more  and  more  in  knowledge  and  all  discernment.33  He 
is  full  of  thankfulness  upon  all  his  remembrance  of  them.34 
1  le  rejoices  in  the  privilege  of  being  offered  upon  the  sacri- 
fice and  service  of  their  faith.35 


33  Phil.  I.  9. 

34  Phil.  i.  3. 

35  Phil.  2.  17. 


THE  EriSTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       421 

The  church  at  Philippi  may  not  have  been  conspicuous  in 
charisms  as  the  church  at  Corinth  was,  but  it  had  the  fruits 
of  the  Spirit  in  rich  measure.  Paul  seems  to  think  that  it 
needed  only  to  rejoice  in  its  spiritual  possessions  and  to  grow 
in  grace  and  in  the  mind  of  Christ.  His  heart  is  full  of 
gratitude  and  love  as  he  writes.  His  joy  overflows  as  he 
thinks  of  them.  His  peace  and  his  hope  are  triumphant  over 
present  affliction  and  the  prospect  of  persecution  and  death. 
If  this  is  his  last  will  and  testament  to  his  beloved  church, 
as  Holtzmann  calls  it,  he  has  nothing  to  bequeath  them  but 
his  unqualified  benediction.  Having  loved  them  from  the 
first,  he  loves  them  to  the  end. 

3.  It  is  the  Epistle  of  Joy.  It  was  Bengel  who  said, 
"Summa  epistolcc,  gaudco,  gaudete — The  sum  of  the  epistle 
is,  I  rejoice;  rejoice  ye."  Paul  was  a  man  whose  spirits 
were  undaunted  in  any  circumstances.  He  might  be 
scourged  in  one  city  and  stoned  in  another  and  imprisoned 
in  a  third  and  left  for  dead  in  a  fourth,  but  as  long  as  he 
retained  consciousness  and  as  soon  as  he  regained  con- 
sciousness he  rejoiced.  Nothing  could  dampen  his  ardor. 
Nothing  could  disturb  his  peace.  In  Philippi  he  had  been 
scourged  and  cast  into  the  inner  prison  and  his  feet  had 
been  made  fast  in  the  stocks.  His  back  was  bleeding  and 
torn ;  his  ankles  were  swollen  and  paining  him ;  he  could  not 
lie  down ;  he  could  not  sleep.  It  was  too  dark  in  that  dun- 
geon for  him  to  see  anyone,  but  he  could  hear  the  voice  of 
Silas  somewhere  near  him  in  that  midnight  gloom.  Some 
men  would  have  felt  depressed  under  those  circumstances, 
and  the  prison  damp  and  darkness  would  have  chilled  their 
very  souls.  It  was  not  so  with  Paul.  He  began  to  sing 
hymns  of  praise  to  God,  and  Silas  joined  in.  We  can  imagine 
that  they  sang  some  of  the  old  psalms  of  confidence  in  God's 
presence  and  power, 

"If  I  make  my  bed  in  Sheol,  behold,  thou  art  there  .  .  . 
If  I  say,  Surely  the  darkness  shall  overwhelm  me,  .  .  . 
Even  the  darkness  hideth  not  from  thee, 


422  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

But  the  night  shineth  as  the  day: 

The  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  thee."36 

Then  they  sang  some  of  the  new  songs  which  Lnke  had 
collected  for  the  Christian  church, 

"He  will  'grant  unto  us  that  we  being  delivered  out  of  the  hand  of 
our  enemies 
Shall  serve  him  without  fear, 

In  holiness  and  righteousness  before  him  all  our  days  .  .  . 
Because  of  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God, 
Whereby  the  dayspring  from  on  high  shall  visit  us, 
To  shine  upon  them  that  sit  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death; 
To  guide  our  feet  into  the  way  of  peace.'  "37 

Then  an  earthquake  shook  the  prison  to  its  foundations 
and  everyone's  honds  were  loosed  and  all  the  doors  were 
opened  and  down  the  narrow  passageway  to  the  dungeon 
depth  where  Paul  and  Silas  had  been  singing  there  came 
the  feeble  light  from  the  morning  star  on  high ;  and  they 
knew  that  their  deliverance  had  come  and  their  sacred  con- 
cert could  close  for  that  time. 

Rejoicing  in  the  prison  at  Philippi,  Paul  was  still  rejoic- 
ing though  he  was  in  prison  again  at  Rome.  Some  men 
would  have  been  discouraged  by  that  time.  Wherever  Paul 
had  gone  his  preaching  had  been  despised  and  he  had  been 
persecuted.  The  Jews  had  slandered  him  and  harassed  him 
and  so  many  of  his  converts  had  proven  to  be  fickle  and  false. 
The  years  had  gone  by  and  the  breach  between  him  and  his 
brethren  had  widened  rather  than  lessened,  and  at  last  they 
had  succeeded  in  getting  him  into  prison  and  keeping  him 
there  for  years.  Prison  life  is  never  pleasant ;  and  it  was 
far  less  so  in  that  ancient  day  than  it  is  now.  Paul  was  such 
an  ardent  spirit.  It  was  more  difficult  for  him  to  be  con- 
fined than  it  would  be  for  a  more  indolent  man.  He  had 
been  the  Wandering  Jew  of  church  history,  he  was  a  world- 


MPsa.  139.  8-12. 

37  Luke  1.  74,  75,  78,  79. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       423 

missionary,  a  restless  cosmopolite,  ranging  up  and  clown 
through  the  continents  with  the  message  of  the  Christ.  It 
was  like  putting  an  eagle  into  a  cage  to  put  him  into  prison. 
Many  eagles  mope  and  die  in  confinement.  Paul  was  not 
moping.  He  was  writing  this  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  and 
saying  to  them,  "All  the  things  which  happened  unto  me 
have  fallen  out  rather  unto  the  progress  of  the  gospel.  .  .  . 
Therein  I  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  rejoice."  38 

His  enemies  were  free  to  do  and  say  what  they  pleased, 
and  they  were  making  the  most  of  the  opportunity.  He 
could  no  longer  thwart  or  hinder  them.  Some  men  would 
have  broken  out  into  loud  lamentations  and  complaints. 
Some  men  would  have  worried  about  the  conditions  and 
would  have  gotten  nervous  about  the  outcome  of  the  cause. 
The  faith  of  even  John  the  Baptist  failed  in  prison.  He 
could  not  believe  that  things  were  going  right  if  he  were 
not  there  to  attend  to  them.  Paul's  faith  never  wavered. 
His  hope  never  waned.  His  joy  was  inexhaustible  and  per- 
ennial. Did  he  hear  the  sentry's  step  pacing  up  and  down 
the  corridor  before  his  prison  door?  It  reminded  him  of 
the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding,  guarding 
his  heart  and  his  thoughts  in  Christ  Jesus,39  standing  sentry 
there  night  and  day.  You  might  as  well  try  to  blot  out  the 
sunshine  of  a  clear  day  with  ink  spots  as  to  get  such  a  man  as 
Paul  to  whine  or  worry  or  be  dismayed.  If  there  are  ink 
spots  anywhere,  the  sun  shines  on  in  sublime  unconscious- 
ness of  their  insignificant  existence.  So  Paul's  rejoicing 
overflows  in  sublime  indifference  to  anything  and  every- 
thing which  seems  adverse  to  him  or  his  cause. 

The  keynote  of  the  epistle  is,  "Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always: 
again  I  will  say,  Rejoice."  40  The  gospel  is  being  preached 
by  him  even  in  prison,  and  the  good  work  is  going  on  out- 
side even  through  those  who  think  they  can  afflict  him  by 

38  Phil.  1.  12,  18. 

39  Phil.  4.  7. 

40  Phil.  4.  4. 


424  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

their  way  of  doing  it.  They  are  very  much  mistaken.  As 
long  as  Christ  is  being  preached  he  is  content,  whether  it  is 
done  in  exactly  his  method  or  not.  If  his  death  is  imminent, 
he  will  rejoice,  for  to  die  will  be  to  him  great  gain.  If  he 
is  to  be  permitted  to  live  longer,  he  will  rejoice,  for  he  can 
be  of  further  service  to  the  Christ  and  the  converts  whom  he 
so  loves.  It  was  a  clear  case  of  "Heads  I  win,  and  tails  you 
lose,"  between  Paul  and  any  ill  fortune  which  might  befall 
him.  He  had  learned  in  whatsoever  state  he  was  therein  to 
be  content.  He  knew  how  to  be  abased  and  he  knew  also 
how  to  abound :  in  everything  and  in  all  things  he  had  learned 
the  secret  both  to  be  filled  and  to  be  hungry,  both  to 
abound  and  to  be  in  want.41  Everything  which  happened 
to  him  was  for  the  best.  All  things  worked  together  for 
his  good. 

He  had  the  grace  of  gratitude  for  the  least  of  God's  gifts. 
He  could  have  walked  with  Socrates  down  the  streets  of 
Athens  and  have  joined  him  with  all  sincerity  in  saying, 
"How  many  things  there  are  which  I  can  get  along  without !" 
He  would  have  sympathized  with  the  grateful  spirit  of  Saint 
Francis,  who  with  one  of  the  brethren  came,  worn  and 
weary,  into  a  certain  town,  where  they  begged  their  bread 
for  the  love  of  God,  and  of  whom  we  read,  "When  they  had 
done  their  begging  they  met  together  to  eat  in  a  place  with- 
out the  city,  where  was  a  fair  fountain  and  a  fine,  broad 
stone ;  upon  the  which  each  set  the  alms  that  he  had  begged. 
And  Saint  Francis,  seeing  the  pieces  of  bread  and  the  stone 
and  the  fountain,  could  not  contain  himself  for  joy,  but  kept 
on  crying  over  and  over  again :  'O  brother,  we  are  not 
worthy  of  such  vast  treasure !' ':  Paul  might  not  have  sym- 
pathized with  the  begging,  but  he  would  have  sympathized 
with  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving,  and  in  similar  destitution  he 
would  have  rejoiced  in  the  abundance  of  his  blessing  and 
have  called  it  a  feast. 

41  Phil.  4.  11,  12. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       425 

He  was  of  one  spirit  with  John  Wesley,  with  whom  John 
Nelson  traveled  in  Cornwall  and  of  whom  John  Nelson 
writes,  "At  Saint  Ives  Mr.  Wesley  and  I  lay  on  the  floor: 
he  had  my  greatcoat  for  his  pillow,  and  I  had  Burkitt's  Notes 
on  the  New  Testament  for  mine.  After  being  here  near 
three  weeks,  one  morning,  about  three  o'clock,  Mr.  Wesley 
turned  over,  and,  finding  me  awake,  clapped  me  on  the  side, 
saying,  'Brother  Nelson,  let  us  be  of  good  cheer:  I  have  one 
whole  side  yet,  for  the  skin  is  off  but  on  one  side.'  We 
usually  preached  on  the  commons,  going  from  one  common 
to  another,  and  it  was  but  seldom  that  anyone  asked  us  to 
eat  and  drink.  ...  As  we  returned,  Mr.  Wesley  stopped 
his  horse  to  pick  the  blackberries,  saying,  'Brother  Nelson, 
we  ought  to  be  thankful  that  there  are  plenty  of  the  black- 
berries; for  this  is  the  best  country  I  ever  saw  for  getting 
a  stomach,  but  the  worst  that  ever  I  saw  for  getting  food.'  v 
Some  people  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  find  anything 
for  which  to  be  thankful  in  such  circumstances,  but  John 
Wesley  was  thankful  for  blackberries,  and  if  Paul  had  been 
with  him,  Paul  would  have  said,  "Not  that  I  speak  in  respect 
of  want:  for  I  have  learned,  in  whatsoever  state  I  am, 
therein  to  be  content." 

Henry  Boehm  was  the  traveling  companion  of  Bishop 
Asbury  through  the  American  wilderness,  and  he  says :  "As 
Bishop  Asbury  and  I  were  traveling  through  the  woods 
we  would  often  stop  to  refresh  both  man  and  beast.  The 
bishop  would  sit  down  by  a  spring  of  water,  take  a  crust  of 
bread  from  his  pocket,  and  ask  a  blessing  over  it  with  as 
much  solemnity  and  gratitude  as  he  would  over  a  table 
spread  with  the  richest  and  most  plentiful  provision.  Blessed 
man !  many  a  time  it  drew  tears  from  my  eyes  when  I  wit- 
nessed it ;  and  often,  since  the  good  bishop  has  gone  to 
feast  in  paradise.  I  have  wept  as  I  have  thought  upon  it." 
Thanksgiving  for  pure  water  and  a  clean  crust !  Bishop 
Asbury  could  have  said  with  Paul,  "I  have  learned  the  secret 
how  to  be  content  and  how  to  rejoice  both  when  I  am  filled 


426  PAUL  AND  HIS  EriSTLES 

and  when  I  am  hungry,  both  when  I  abound  and  when  I 
am  in  want."    Paul  rejoiced  always. 

His  experience  could  be  like  a  sun  flower  facing  the  full 
flood  of  the  sunlight  and  flaunting  its  petals  on  high  and 
laughing  and  praising  its  Lord  all  the  day.  The  sunflower 
is  a  courtier  of  the  old  school,  holding  its  head  high  and  look- 
ing its  King  full  in  the  face,  but  with  all  dignity  and  loyalty 
subservient  to  him  in  everything.  If  things  went  well  with 
Paul,  he  knew  that  the  Lord  was  at  hand,  and  he  rejoiced 
in  his  presence  and  love;  as  the  sunflower  rejoices  in  the 
sun.  If  things  went  ill  with  Paul,  he  was  just  as  sure  that 
the  Lord  was  at  hand  and  he  rejoiced  that  the  Lord's  will 
was  being  wrought  out  in  him  and  for  him  and  that  his  own 
character  was  being  developed  and  his  saintliness  was  being 
matured.  If  need  occasioned,  his  experience  could  be  like 
a  night-blooming  cereus,  sending  forth  blossoms  from  thorny 
stems  and  opening  out  new  beauties  in  the  deepest  dark  and 
filling  even  a  prison  cell  with  the  fragrance  of  a  holy  life. 
He  is  old  and  worn  and  in  prison,  but  he  writes  this  letter 
to  the  Philippians,  and  it  is  only  a  short  epistle,  but  some 
twenty  times  in  the  course  of  it  he  uses  the  words,  "joy," 
"rejoice,"  "peace,"  "content,"  and  "thanksgiving."  It  is  a 
love  letter  and  it  is  full  of  peace  and  hope  and  joy. 

4.  It  is  of  great  importance,  theologically.  It  is  one  of 
the  paradoxes  to  which  we  become  almost  accustomed  in 
Paul's  writings  that  this  simplest  of  his  letters,  most  episto- 
lary and  most  personal  throughout,  should  yet  contain  the 
fullest  and  most  important  putting  of  the  theology  of  the 
incarnation  and  exaltation  which  ever  came  from  his  pen. 
He  has  only  a  practical  end  in  view.  He  is  exhorting  the 
Philippians  to  humility  and  he  says  to  them:  "Have  this 
mind  in  you,  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus :  who,  existing 
in  the  form  of  God,  counted  not  the  being  on  an  equality 
with  God  a  thing  to  be  grasped,  but  emptied  himself,  taking 
the  form  of  a  servant,  being  made  in  the  likeness  (if  men  ; 
and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself, 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       427 

becoming  obedient  even  unto  death,  yea,  the  death  of  the 
cross.  Wherefore  God  also  highly  exalted  him,  and  gave 
unto  him  the  name  which  is  above  every  name;  that  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven 
and  things  on  earth  and  things  under  the  earth,  and  that 
every  tongue  should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord,  to 
the  glory  of  God  the  Father."  42  It  is  the  most  theological 
passage  in  the  epistle.  Doctrinally  it  is  one  of  the  most 
important  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is  Paul's  final  contri- 
bution to  the  solution  of  the  great  mystery  of  the  coming  of 
the  Saviour  and  the  economy  of  salvation.  It  is  his  last 
word  at  any  length  on  this  subject.  He  states  plainly  the 
fact  of  the  kenosis,  the  morale  of  the  redemption,  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  exaltation,  and  the  sure  hope  of  the  universal 
adoration  in  the  end. 

Volumes  have  been  written  upon  the  doctrine  of  this  pas- 
sage. Others  will  be  written,  for  here  the  most  vital  truths 
of  Christology  are  clearly  stated  and  definitely  formulated 
for  all  time.  Jesus  was  a  real  man,  not  grasping  at  any  of 
the  attributes  of  Deity  which  would  be  inconsistent  with 
real  and  true  humanity,  but  in  whole-hearted  surrender  of 
sacrifice  submitting  to  all  the  disabilities  and  limitations 
necessary  to  the  incarnate  condition.  He  was  equal  with 
God,  but  he  emptied  himself  of  the  omnipotence  and  the 
omniscience  and  the  omnipresence  of  his  preincarnate  state 
and  was  found  in  form  as  a  man,  a  genuine  man,  obedient  to 
God  in  all  his  life.  He  always  maintained  that  attitude 
toward  God  which  we  ought  to  maintain  and  which  we 
can  maintain  in  our  humanity,  in  which  he  was  on  an  equal- 
ity with  us.  We  ought  to  have  the  mind  which  was  in 
Christ.  He  humbled  himself  and  became  obedient.  He 
was  obedient  through  life  and  obedient  unto  death,  yea,  even 
unto  the  death  of  the  cross.  He  might  have  died  like  Moses 
on  some  mountaintop  of  communion  with  God.     He  might 

42  Phil.  2.  5-1 1. 


428  PAIL  AND  I  US  EPISTLES 

have  died  at  home  with  Mary  the  mother  to  pillow  his  head 
on  her  arm  and  with  his  hest  friends  ahont  him  to  speak 
words  of  eomfort  and  peace  in  his  last  hours.  He  died  the 
most  painful  and  the  most  humiliating  death  possible  in  that 
age.  Cicero  declared  that  crucifixion  was  too  horrible  and 
too  degrading  a  death  for  any  Roman  citizen  ever  to  suffer 
it.  However,  it  was  good  enough  for  a  provincial  and  a 
condemned  criminal  like  Jesus. 

There  had  been  no  place  for  him  in  the  inn  in  the  begin- 
ning, and  at  the  end  there  was  no  place  upon  the  earth 
where  he  could  lay  his  head.  Lifted  up  between  the  earth 
and  the  sky,  he  could  not  rest  his  head  even  upon  the  hard 
wood  of  the  cross  arm,  for  it  was  encircled  with  a  crown  of 
thorns  whose  sharp  points  tore  his  brow  and  pierced  his  hair 
if  he  rested  its  weight  anywhere.  That  was  the  death  which 
he  died.  Wherefore  God  hath  highly  exalted  him  and  given 
him  a  crown  above  all  other  crowns  and  the  promise  of 
universal  sovereignty.  We  are  to  enter  into  mystical  union 
with  him.  If  we  suffer  with  him,  we  shall  reign  together. 
It  is  a  great  passage,  setting  forth  profoundest  truths  in  the 
tersest  manner.  It  is  the  crowning  revelation  concerning 
Jesus.  His  humiliation  was  to  the  uttermost,  and  in  his 
exaltation  he  is  supreme. 

V.  Genuineness  of  the  Epistle 

The  genuineness  of  the  epistle  is  admitted  very  generally 
to-day.  It  was  in  the  canon  of  Marcion.  Its  name  occurs 
in  the  Muratorian  fragment.  It  is  found  in  both  the  Peshito 
and  the  Old  Latin  versions.  It  is  mentioned  by  Polycarp 
and  quoted  in  the  letter  of  the  Churches  of  Lyons  and 
Vienne,  in  the  Epistle  of  Diognctus,  and  in  the  writings 
of  Irenseus  and  Clement  of  Alexandria.  Baur  made  a 
determined  attack  upon  its  authenticity.  He  declared  that 
it  was  not  doctrinal  and  polemical  like  the  other  Pauline 
epistles,  and  that  it  was  full  of  shallow  imitations  of  these, 
and  that  it  had  no  apparent  motive  and  no  connected  argu- 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PIIILIPPIANS       429 

merit  and  no  depth  of  thought.  He  questioned  some  of  the 
historical  data  and  suspected  Gnostic  influence  in  certain 
passages.  Bleek  said  of  Baurs  arguments  that  they  were 
partly  derived  from  a  perverted  interpretation  of  certain 
passages  in  the  epistle ;  they  partly  rested  upon  arbitrary 
historical  presuppositions ;  and  some  of  them  were  really  so 
weak  that  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  he  could  have  attached 
any  importance  to  them  himself. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  few  critics  have  been  found  will- 
ing to  follow  Baur's  leadership  at  this  point.  Biederman, 
Kreucker,  Schwegler,  Bruno  Bauer,  von  Manen,  Hinsch, 
Hitzig,  Hoekstra,  and  Holsten  may  be  mentioned  among 
them;  and  of  these  Holsten  is  chief.  Of  him  Schiirer  said, 
"The  researches  of  Holsten  are  full  of  sagacity ;  but  the  rea- 
sons alleged  by  him  for  denying  the  genuineness  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians  can  have  no  weight,  unless  we  take 
the  apostle  Paul  (the  most  living  and  versatile  character  the 
world  has  ever  seen)  to  be  such  a  slave  of  rigid  routine  that 
he  cannot  write  one  epistle  that  shall  not  be  exactly  like  all 
the  others,  that  he  can  only  repeat  in  each  what  he  has  said 
in  the  preceding,  and  in  the  very  same  words.  If  we  are 
not  prepared  to  admit  this,  all  the  objections  raised  against 
the  authenticity  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  fall  to 
the  ground."  Later  he  says,  "The  arguments  of  Holsten 
are  so  foolish  that  one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  put  them 
down  as  slips  of  the  pen." 

The  genuineness  of  the  epistle  has  been  defended  by 
Weizsacker,  Weiss,  Pfleiderer,  Jiilicher,  Bruckner,  Klopper, 
Grimm,  Schenkel,  Sabatier,  Reuss,  Resch,  Hilgenfeld, 
Harnack,  Holtzmann,  Ernesti,  Mangold,  Lipsius,  Liine- 
mann,  Renan,  Godet,  Zahn,  Clemen,  Davidson,  Lightfoot, 
Farrar,  and  practically  all  of  the  English  writers  on  the  sub- 
ject. Weizsacker  says  that  the  reasons  for  attributing  the 
epistle  to  the  apostle  Paul  are  "overwhelming."  Peake 
concludes,  "Few  things  in  modern  criticism  are  better  as- 
sured than  the  authenticity  of  this  epistle,  and  it  may  be 


43Q  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

accepted  without  any  misgiving."  43  McGiffert  declares :  "It 
is  simply  inconceivable  that  anyone  else  would  or  could  have 
produced  in  his  name  a  letter  in  which  no  doctrinal  or 
ecclesiastical  motive  can  be  discovered,  and  in  which  the 
personal  element  so  largely  predominates  and  the  character 
of  the  man  and  of  the  apostle  is  revealed  with  so  great 
vividness  and  fidelity.  The  epistle  deserves  to  rank  along- 
side of  Galatians,  Corinthians,  and  Romans  as  an  undoubted 
product  of  Paul's  pen,  and  as  a  coordinate  standard  by 
which  to  test  the  genuineness  of  other  and  less  certain  writ- 
ings." 44  This  is  the  practically  unanimous  conclusion  of 
modern  scholarship. 

VI.  Place,  Date,  and  Occasion  of  Writing 

This  is  one  of  the  prison  epistles.  Paul  makes  fre- 
quent reference  to  his  bonds.45  He  was  for  two  years 
a  prisoner  in  Csesarea.40  Paulus  and  others  have  thought 
that  the  epistle  was  written  during  this  imprisonment ; 
but  the  references  to  the  praetorian  guard  and  the  mem- 
bers of  Caesar's  household  have  led  most  critics  to  con- 
clude that  the  Roman  imprisonment  was  the  one  to  which 
the  epistle  refers.  The  epistles  to  Philemon,  the  Colossians, 
and  the  Ephesians  also  were  written  during  the  Roman 
imprisonment,  and  these  three  form  a  group  by  themselves. 
Philippians  evidently  is  separated  from  them  by  some  inter- 
val. Was  it  written  earlier  or  later  than  they?  Beyschlag, 
Bleek,  Ewald,  Lightfoot,  Farrar,  Moule,  Lock,  Sanday, 
I  lort,  Beet,  and  others  think  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Philip- 
pians was  written  first.  These  are  first-class  authorities,  and 
it  is  with  hesitation  that  we  differ  with  them  at  this  point. 
We  prefer,  however,  to  agree  with  Zahn,  Ramsay,  Findlay, 
Shaw,  Vincent,  Jiilicher,   Holtzmann,  Weiss,  Godet,  Saba- 


43  Peake,  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  p.  59. 

44  McGiffert,  The  Apostolic  Age,  p.  393. 

45  Phil.  1.  7,  13,  14,  17.  46Acts  24.  27. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       431 

tier,  Reuss,  Lipsius,  Gwynn,  Klopper,  McGifrert,  Moffatt, 
Bartlet,  Bacon,  Kennedy,  Peake,  and  others  who  argue  for 
the  writing  of  Philippians  toward  the  close  of  the  Roman 
imprisonment.    Their  reasons  are  as  follows  : 

( 1 )  We  know  that  some  considerable  time  must  have 
elapsed  after  Paul's  arrival  at  Rome  before  he  could  have 
written  this  epistle;  for  the  news  of  his  arrival  had  been 
carried  to  Philippi  and  a  contribution  to  his  needs  had  been 
raised  among  his  friends  there  and  Epaphroditus  had  car- 
ried it  to  Rome.  In  Rome  Epaphroditus  had  become  seri- 
ously sick,  and  the  news  of  this  sickness  had  been  carried 
back  to  Philippi  and  the  Philippians  had  sent  back  a  mes- 
sage of  sympathy  to  him.  At  least  four  trips  between 
Rome  and  Philippi  are  thus  indicated,  and  there  are  inter- 
vals of  greater  or  less  length  between  them.  The  distance 
between  the  two  cities  was  some  seven  hundred  miles.  Com- 
munication was  easy  by  the  Appian  Way  and  Trajan's 
Way  to  Brundusium  and  across  the  narrow  straits  there  to 
the  Egnatian  Way,  which  led  directly  to  Philippi.  There 
were  many  making  the  trip  at  all  times,  but  the  journey 
would  occupy  a  month  at  least,  and  the  four  journeys  sug- 
gested in  the  epistle  were  not  in  direct  succession. 

(2)  Taiil  says  that  through  him  Christ  had  become 
known  through  the  whole  praetorian  guard  (1.  13).  It  must 
have  taken  some  time  for  this  to  become  possible. 

(3)  The  conditions  outside  the  prison,  where  Christ  was 
being  preached  by  some  in  a  spirit  of  love  and  by  others  in 
a  spirit  of  faction,  cannot  be  located  in  the  earliest  months 
of  Paul's  sojourn  in  Rome.47  They  must  belong  to  a  time 
when  Christianity  had  developed  in  the  city  and  parties 
had  been  formed  in  the  church. 

(4)  Luke  was  well  known  at  Philippi,  yet  he  sends  no 
salutation  to  the  Philippians  in  this  epistle.  He  surely 
would  have  done  so  if  he  had  been  with  Paul  at  the  time 

47  Phil.  1.  15-17. 


432  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

of  its  writing.  He  was  with  the  apostle  when  he  wrote  to 
the  Colossians,  and  so  was  Demas.48  Now  Paul  promises 
to  send  Timothy  to  Philippi,  and  says,  "I  have  no  man  like- 
minded,  who  will  care  truly  for  your  state."  49  Aristarchus, 
Demas,  Luke  are  all  gone.  They  all  had  been  with  him  when 
he  wrote  the  earlier  epistles. 

(5)  His  condition  as  a  prisoner  seems  to  have  been 
changed  for  the  worse.  He  had  enjoyed  comparative  liberty 
for  the  first  two  years  of  his  imprisonment  in  Rome,  living 
in  his  own  hired  house  and  accessible  to  all  his  friends.  He 
now  had  been  removed,  possibly  to  the  guard  room  of  the 
praetorian  cohort.  Here  he  is  in  more  rigorous  confinement, 
almost  alone. 

(6)  Paul  writes  as  if  he  thought  that  his  case  would  be 
decided  soon.50  He  seems  to  be  facing  his  final  trial.  He 
is  not  sure  of  its  outcome.  He  may  die  a  martyr's  death, 
but  he  expects  to  be  acquitted  and  then  to  be  at  liberty  to 
do  further  missionary  work.  This  was  not  his  immediate 
expectation  when  he  wrote  the  other  epistles,  and  there- 
fore they  would  seem  to  be  earlier  than  this. 

(7)  The  epistle  is  addressed  to  all  the  saints  in  Philippi, 
with  the  bishops  and  the  deacons.51  These  official  titles  do 
not  occur  in  any  earlier  epistles,  but  they  are  found  in  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  which  were  written  still  later.  Therefore 
they  link  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  with  the  later  rather 
than  the  earlier  epistles. 

From  these  indications  we  conclude  that  Paul  was  nearing 
his  final  trial  when  he  wrote  this  epistle,  and  that  it,  there- 
fore, represents  the  maturest  development  of  his  faith  and 
his  thought.  It  was  the  last  of  his  epistles  to  the  churches. 
The  Pastoral  Epistles  were  written  to  individuals.  Hilgen- 
feld  calls  this  "the  swan  song"  of  the  great  apostle.  In  it 
Paul  has  written  his  last  exhortations  and  warnings,  his 
last  hopes  and  prayers  for  his  converts  to  the  Christian 

48  Col.  4.  14.  60  Phil.  2.  20-22. 

49  Phil.  2.  20.  "Phil.  I.  I. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       433 

faith.    Its  date  must  be  somewhere  toward  the  close  of  the 
Roman  imprisonment,  in  the  years  A.  D.  63  or  64. 

Epaphroditus  had  brought  the  contribution  of  the  Philip- 
pians  to  Paul  in  Rome.  He  had  plunged  into  the  work  there 
and  had  contracted  a  malarial  fever  or  some  other  serious 
sickness;  but  his  life  had  been  spared  in  answer  to  the 
prayers  of  Paul  and  his  friends.  Now  Paul  sends  him  back 
to  Philippi,  though  he  knows  that  he  will  be  very  lonely 
without  him;  and  he  sends  with  him  this  letter  of  acknowl- 
edgment of  their  gift,  filled  with  commendation  and  en- 
couragement, gratitude  and  love. 

VII.  Contents  of  the  Epistle 

1.  Address  (1.  1,  2). 

2.  Thanksgiving  and  Prayer  (1.  3-1 1).  Paul  is  thank- 
ful for  their  fellowship  and  confident  of  their  perfection. 
He  longs  for  them  and  prays  that  their  love  may  be  wise  to 
discriminate  among  the  most  excellent  things  and  that  they 
may  be  able  to  choose  the  very  best,  until  they  are  filled 
with  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  which  are  through  Jesus 
Christ,  unto  the  glory  and  the  praise  of  God. 

3.  Information  Concerning  His  Own  Experience  (1. 
12-30).  (1)  His  Evangelism  (verses  12-14).  Everything 
has  turned  out  well.  Paul  is  in  prison,  but  he  has  been  inde- 
fatigable in  his  evangelism.  He  has  been  chained  to  a 
soldier,  but  that  has  given  him  many  an  opportunity  for 
personal  and  private  and  prolonged  conversation.  When 
the  people  have  gathered  to  hear,  the  guard  has  listened  per- 
force; and  when  the  crowd  was  gone  more  than  once  the 
soldier  has  seemed  curious  and  interested  and  they  have 
talked  on  about  the  Christ.  Paul  has  told  his  experience 
over  and  over  to  these  men,  and  his  story  has  been  carried 
through  the  whole  camp.  Here  was  a  new  sort  of  prisoner, 
a  man  who  was  suffering  only  because  of  his  faith,  and 
that  faith  was  in  a  crucified  Prophet  whom  he  believed  to 
have  been  resurrected  from  the  dead  and  to  have  appeared 


434  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

to  himself  and  to  have  made  him  a  new  man.  The  soldiers 
watched  him  from  day  to  day  and  concluded  that  he  was 
an  honest  man  and  a  very  good  man  who  never  lost  his 
temper  under  any  provocation,  but  who  was  patient  and 
peaceful  and  pure  all  the  time.  They  never  had  known  any- 
one like  him.  They  began  to  believe,  some  of  them,  that  he 
taught  the  divine  truth  and  that  he  had  a  supernatural 
strengthening  in  his  spiritual  life.  Not  only  had  the  gospel 
found  unexpected  furtherance  inside  the  prison  walls,  but 
through  the  whole  city  the  brethren  had  been  emboldened 
by  Paul's  success  to  preach  Christ,  some  through  faction  and 
envy  and  strife  and  some  through  love. 

(2)  His  Tolerance  (verses  15-18).  Paul  rejoices  that 
Christ  is  preached  whether  by  his  enemies  or  by  his  friends. 
He  would  much  prefer  to  have  the  gospel  presented  as  he 
himself  preached  it,  but  he  was  great-souled  and  broad- 
minded  enough  to  tolerate  differences  of  opinion  and  method 
among  brethren  in  Christ.  Roman  Christianity  never  was 
preeminently  of  the  Pauline  type.  This  initial  impulse  away 
from  the  Pauline  forms  of  doctrine  and  practice  culminated 
after  the  centuries  in  that  Roman  Catholicism  against  which 
Martin  Luther  made  his  protest.  Protestantism  and  Roman 
Catholicism  for  the  most  part  have  been  at  swords'  points 
ever  since.  It  is  time  now  that  we  go  back  to  the  noble 
tolerance  of  the  apostle  Paul  and  recognize  the  fact  that, 
with  all  the  differences  between  us,  it  still  may  be  true  that 
we  all  preach  Christ,  and  therefore  are  brethren,  and  there- 
fore ought  to  rejoice  in  each  other's  success.  This  is  one  of 
the  noblest  utterances  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  men.  "In 
every  way,  whether  in  pretense  or  in  truth,  Christ  is  pro- 
claimed; and  therein  I  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  rejoice."  r,L' 
Paul  is  sorry  that  everybody  does  not  see  things  just  exactly 
as  he  does,  but  he  rejoices  if  they  glorify  Christ  and  would 
not  put  the  least  hindrance  in  their  way. 

"Phil.  1.  18. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIAXS       435 

(3)  His  Readiness  for  Life  or  Death  (verses  19-26). 
Paul  says :  "Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death ;  it  will  be 
Christ  either  way.  To  live  is  to  work  for  Christ;  to  die  is 
to  be  with  Christ.  To  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is 
gain."  Here  is  Paul's  soliloquy  in  the  face  of  possible 
martyrdom  or  further  missionary  labor.  We  are  reminded 
of  Hamlet's  soliloquy  in  Shakespeare.  "To  be  or  not  to  be : 
that  is  the  question"  with  both  Hamlet  and  Paul.  Hamlet 
decides  that  to  end  the  heartache  and  the  thousand  natural 
shocks  that  flesh  is  heir  to  is  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
desired,  but  then  he  pauses  to  think  what  dreams  may  come 
in  that  sleep  of  death.  He  thinks  that  it  would  be  gain 
to  die  if  it  were  not  for  the  dread  of  something  after 
death,  the  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourn  no  trav- 
eler returns.  He  is  in  a  strait  betwixt  the  two,  having  a 
desire  to  depart ;  but  uncertain  whether  it  would  be  better 
to  bear  the  ills  he  has  than  fly  to  others  that  he  knows  not 
of.  That  is  the  trouble  with  Hamlet.  He  is  uncertain  about 
the  future  and  he  is  weighing  the  woes  he  has  over  against 
the  possibly  greater  woes  to  come.  It  is  a  choice  between 
evils  with  him.  For  him  to  live  is  misery  and  to  die  is  to 
be  more  miserable.    Now,  contrast  Hamlet  with  Paul. 

Paul  might  make  as  long  a  list  of  personal  grievances  as 
Hamlet  could.  Surely,  he  knew  the  heartache  and  the 
thousand  natural  shocks  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  In  that  Roman 
prison  he  felt  the  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  con- 
tumely, the  pangs  of  disprized  love,  the  law's  delay,  the 
insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns  that  patient  merit  of  the 
unworthy  takes.  He  knew  and  felt  these  things  as  keenly 
as  any;  but  here  in  his  soliloquy  he  is  not  counting  up  the 
sorrows  of  life,  but  life's  blessings!  He  is  weighing  the 
blessings  of  life  over  against  the  blessings  of  death,  and  he 
is  finding  it  difficult  to  decide  between  the  two.  There  is  no 
uncertainty  about  death  or  his  condition  after  death  with 
him.  He  will  be  with  Christ,  and  that  is  very  far  better; 
but  he  can  be  more  helpful  to  his  brethren  here.    To  be  or 


436  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

not  to  be :  that  is  the  question,  and  Paul  decides,  like  Hamlet, 
in  favor  of  longer  life.  Hamlet  comes  to  that  decision 
because  his  conscience  had  made  him  a  coward.  Paul  comes 
to  that  decision  because  his  missionary  spirit  is  ready  for 
the  supreme  sacrifice  in  behalf  of  his  friends.  The  supreme 
sacrifice  is  not  in  martyrdom  for  the  cause;  that  would  be 
easy  and  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  desired.  The 
supreme  sacrifice  is  the  sacrifice  of  daily  service  in  continued 
missionary  labors.  The  aged  apostle  would  rather  die  than 
live;  but  he  would  rather  live  than  die  before  his  work 
was  done. 

Hamlet's  soliloquy  led  to  his  continued  inaction.  The 
native  hue  of  his  resolution  was  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale 
cast  of  thought,  and  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
had  their  currents  turned  awry  and  lost  the  name  of  action. 
Paul's  soliloquy  ends  with  the  resolution  that  he  will  con- 
tinue the  great  enterprise  to  which  his  life  has  been  devoted 
and  that  he  will  rejoice  in  being  offered  upon  the  sacrifice 
and  service  of  the  Philippians'  faith.  He  has  sacrificed 
everything  to  the  cause,  all  the  promising  prospects  of  the 
Jewish  rabbi,  all  the  comforts  of  home  and  the  enjoyment 
of  his  study  and  his  ease;  and  now  he  is  willing  to  sacrifice 
what  he  conceives  to  be  the  greatest  blessedness,  that  of 
being  with  Christ  in  bliss,  if  he  can  be  of  further  service 
to  his  friends.  Hamlet  weighs  evils  against  evils  and  chooses 
the  lesser  evils  in  pure  cowardice  in  the  end.  Paul  weighs 
blessings  against  blessings,  the  blessings  of  life  for  Christ 
and  the  blessings  of  death  with  Christ,  and  chooses  the  lesser 
blessings  in  pure  unselfishness  in  the  end.  They  both  choose 
life,  but  the  motives  of  their  choice  are  radically  different ; 
and  Paul  lives  with  rejoicing  while  Hamlet  lives  in  despair 
and  in  shame. 

(4)  His  Example  (verses  27-30).  Paul  was  a  Roman 
citizen,  and  so  were  they.  He  tried  to  live  worthy  of  his 
citizenship,  and  so  must  they.  He  had  a  still  higher  ambi- 
tion, that  he  and  they  might  live  as  citizens  worthy  of  the 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       437 

gospel  of  Christ.  He  fought  as  a  good  soldier;  he  stood 
fast  in  the  faith ;  he  was  in  nothing  affrighted  by  the  adver- 
saries. Let  them  follow  his  example.  They  were  engaged 
in  the  same  conflict.  To  them  it  had  been  granted  not  only 
to  believe  but  also  to  suffer  in  the  behalf  of  Christ.  Their 
faith  was  not  of  themselves;  it  was  the  gift  of  God.  Their 
suffering  was  not  self-chosen;  it  too  was  a  gift  of  God. 

4.  Exhortation  to  Follow  the  Example  of  Christ 
(2.  1-18).  Jesus  Persuaded  by  Love.  Pie  had  the  continu- 
ous fellowship  of  the  Spirit.  He  was  characterized  by  tender 
mercies  and  compassions,  lowliness  of  mind  and  thought  for 
others.  He  humbled  himself  through  life  and  was  obedient 
unto  death  by  crucifixion.  He  worked  out  his  own  salvation 
with  fear  and  trembling,  for  it  was  God  who  worked  in 
him  for  his  good  pleasure.  He  was  blameless  and  harmless, 
the  Son  of  God  without  blemish  in  the  midst  of  a  crooked 
and  perverse  generation.  He  was  the  light  of  the  world, 
holding  forth  the  word  of  life.  Let  the  Philippians  have 
his  mind  and  spirit,  and  Paul  will  rejoice  to  pour  out  his 
life  as  a  libation  upon  the  sacrifice  and  service  of  their  faith. 
Let  these  things  be  done  by  them,  and  Paul  says,  "I  joy, 
and  rejoice  with  you  all :  and  in  the  same  manner  do  ye  also 
joy,  and  rejoice  with  me."  "He  recalls  to  our  minds  the 
runner  who,  at  the  supreme  moment  of  Grecian  history, 
brought  to  Athens  the  news  of  Marathon.  Worn,  panting, 
exhausted  with  the  effort  to  be  the  herald  of  deliverance,  he 
sank  in  death  on  the  threshold  of  the  first  house  which  he 
reached  with  the  tidings  of  victory,  and  sighed  forth  his 
gallant  soul  in  one  great  sob,  almost  in  the  same  words  as 
those  used  by  the  apostle,  Xatgere,  xa'P°!iev — Rejoice  ye,  we 
too  rejoice!"  53 

5.  Reasons  for  Sending  Timothy  and  Epaphroditus  to 
Them  (2.  19-30). 

6.  Paul's  Example  (3.  1-21).     (1)  In  the  Repudiation  of 


63Farrar,  Messages,  p.  305;  compare  Lightfoot,  ad  loc. 


438  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

all  Confidence  in  the  Flesh  (verses  1-7).  There  are  certain 
dogs  and  evil  workers  who  belong  to  the  old  Jewish  persua- 
sion who  glory  in  the  flesh.  Paul  does  not.  He  glories 
in  Christ  Jesus  and  has  no  confidence  in  the  flesh.  He  has 
much  reason  to  be  proud  of  his  past.  He  was  a  Llebrew 
of  the  Hebrews.  No  one  could  find  fault  with  his  legal 
righteousness.  He  claimed  to  be  blameless  as  judged  by 
their  standard.  Here  is  his  record.  Who  has  any  better 
one,  in  pedigree  or  in  piety  ?  All  of  these  things  Paul  counts 
but  loss  for  Christ. 

(2)  In  the  Maintenance  and  the  Pursuit  of  Spiritual  Per- 
fection (verses  8-16).  The  word  "perfect"  is  used  twice  in 
this  paragraph.  We  read,  "Not  that  I  have  already  obtained, 
or  am  already  made  perfect:  but  I  press  on."  Many  of  the 
greatest  preachers  and  some  of  the  best  authorities  among 
the  commentators  quote  these  words  as  indicative  of  Paul's 
humility  in  disclaiming  any  present  perfection  of  character 
while  he  avows  his  purpose  to  strive  on  toward  perfection  as 
long  as  he  lives.  Such  an  interpretation  is  wholly  aside  from 
Paul's  thought.  He  is  not  talking  about  perfection  in  pa- 
tience and  peace  and  devotion  and  character.  That  perfec- 
tion he  claims  for  himself  and  the  Philippians  in  this  para- 
graph toward  the  close,  "Let  us  therefore,  as  many  as  are 
perfect,  be  thus  minded."  The  perfection  of  which  he 
speaks  earlier  is  not  perfection  of  character  but  perfection 
of  nature,  the  perfection  possible  in  the  resurrection  life  of 
the  saints  in  bliss.  He  has  not  attained  unto  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead  and  is  not  perfect  with  the  perfection 
of  heaven.  That  is  the  goal  of  his  endeavor.  He  presses 
on  to  that  mark. 

In  the  meantime  he  maintains  that  perfection  of  consecra- 
tion and  of  faith  which  results  in  present  Christian  perfec- 
tion of  character  and  which  is  the  only  guarantee  of  that 
perfection  to  be  revealed  to  those  who  attain  unto  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead.  Here  he  maintains  the  perfection 
of  the  racer,  who  strives  for  perfect  physical  condition  and 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS      439 

singleness  of  aim  and  utmost  of  effort  as  he  speeds  toward 
the  goal.  There  he  will  have  the  perfection  of  rest  and 
reward.  A  careful  reading  of  the  context  makes  it  perfectly 
clear  that  Paul  has  no  thought  of  disclaiming  anything 
possible  in  his  present  state,  as  perfection  of  motive  and 
effort,  of  spirit  and  life  surely  is,  but  only  that  perfection 
to  which  he  aspires  in  the  life  that  is  to  come.  To  that  he 
has  not  yet  attained.  To  that  he  presses  forward  with  all 
hope  and  strenuous  endeavor,  knowing  that  some  time  he 
will  reach  the  goal  in  glory.  He  keeps  himself  in  perfect 
condition  now.  He  maintains  his  perfect  faith  and  hope. 
Some  time  he  will  be  rewarded  with  the  perfection  of 
heaven. 

(3)  In  Heavenly  Citizenship  (verses  17-21).  Paul  harks 
back  to  his  own  example  again.  His  citizenship  is  in  heaven. 
He  walks  with  his  mind  on  heavenly  things.  There  are  those 
who  mind  earthly  things.  They  are  the  enemies  of  the 
cross,  but  he  has  sworn  eternal  allegiance  to  the  cross. 
Their  end  is  perdition,  while  his  end  is  sure  salvation.  Their 
god  is  the  belly,  while  his  goal  is  the  perfection  of  the 
spirit.  Their  glory  is  in  their  shame,  while  his  glory  is 
in  Christ  alone.  "Brethren,  be  ye  imitators  of  me,  and 
mark  them  that  so  walk  even  as  ye  have  us  for  an  ensample. 
Then  the  Lord  shall  fashion  anew  the  body  of  our  humilia- 
tion, the  body  of  our  earthly  pilgrimage,  the  body  that  so 
often  fails  the  racer  to  the  goal  and  cannot  keep  up  with  the 
desire  of  his  spirit,  and  shall  conform  it  to  the  body  of  his 
glory,  the  perfect  body  of  those  who  have  attained  to  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead."  It  is  not  "our  vile  body"  which 
is  to  be  changed.  That  is  a  sadly  misleading  translation 
in  the  Authorized  Version  of  to-day.  The  body  is  not 
vile ;  and  the  Bible  nowhere  says  that  it  is.  That  was  Mani- 
chean  or  Neo-Platonic  heresy,  that  matter  is  evil  and  the 
body  is  vile.  Plotinus  blushed  that  he  had  a  body;  Jesus 
never  did.  The  Christian  will  honor  the  body  as  the  temple 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.     Archbishop  Whately  was  dying,  and 


440  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

his  chaplain  read  this  passage  to  him,  and  he  read,  "Who 
shall  change  our  vile  body."  "Stop,"  said  the  Archbishop, 
"not  'vile  body,'  if  you  please,  but  the  body  of  our  humilia- 
tion." 

It  is  the  body  which  clogs  and  confines  the  wings  of  the 
spirit,  which  binds  us  to  the  earth,  which  hinders  us  on 
every  hand,  which  wearies  when  we  are  most  anxious  to 
work,  which  fails  us  when  we  most  need  our  strength,  which 
limits  our  achievement  by  sheer  weakness  and  incapacity. 
It  was  the  vehicle  of  the  incarnation,  and  we  honor  it  for 
that.  A  body  was  prepared  for  Jesus,  but  it  was  the  body 
of  his  humiliation.  In  it  he  suffered  pain  of  heart  and  pain 
of  flesh.  He  wearied  in  long  journeyings,  he  fainted  with 
hunger,  he  felt  the  need  of  refreshment  in  sleep.  He 
labored  sometimes  until  his  friends  thought  he  must  be 
beside  himself,  but  he  came  to  the  limit  of  his  physical 
strength  at  last  and  was  compelled  to  steal  away  into  the 
solitudes  for  rest.  His  back  was  bruised  and  bleeding  in 
the  end  and  he  could  not  bear  the  heavy  cross ;  but  that  back 
had  been  bent  beneath  heavy  burdens  all  his  life  long.  His 
brows  were  pierced  with  the  sharp  points  of  the  thorns; 
but  those  brows  had  been  racked  with  pain  again  and  again 
in  his  ministry.  Plis  feet  were  nailed  fast  to  the  heavy 
beam  of  the  cross  tree;  but  before  that  they  had  been  so 
weary  oftentimes  that  he  scarcely  had  been  able  to  lift  the 
one  after  the  other.  He  went  about  doing  good  as  far  as 
he  could  and  as  long  as  he  could,  but,  like  the  ball  and 
chain  about  the  convict's  feet,  his  body  had  been  the  clog 
upon  his  endeavor,  a  constant  source  of  suffering  and  cause 
of  limitation.  It  was  the  body  of  his  humiliation,  from 
which  he  was  freed  at  the  moment  of  his  resurrect  ion. 

Thereafter  he  could  be  where  he  chose  when  he  chose 
and  was  superior  to  all  physical  laws  in  his  appearances 
and  his  disappearances.  The  body  of  his  glory  was  the 
perfect  instrument  for  the  fulfilling  of  his  spirit's  behest. 
It  was  no  longer  subject  to  material  limitations.    It  no  longer 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS      441 

wearied  and  suffered  pain.  It  was  the  body  of  his  exalta- 
tion, perfectly  adapted  to  all  the  spirit's  requirements  and 
perfectly  satisfying  all  the  spirit's  needs.  Paul  says  that 
our  bodies  are  like  the  body  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  now,  and 
they  shall  be  like  the  body  of  our  risen  Lord  after  a  while. 
The  body  of  our  humiliation  will  be  conformed  to  the  body 
of  his  glory  in  due  time. 

7.  A  Series  of  Short  Exhortations  (4.  1-9).  This  series 
ends  with  the  command,  "The  things  which  ye  both  learned 
and  received  and  heard  and  saw  in  me,  these  things  do ;  and 
the  God  of  peace  shall  be  with  you."  All  the  preceding 
exhortations,  then,  are  based  upon  his  own  conduct  and 
experience  and  example.  They  had  seen  the  embodiment 
of  these  things  in  him.  They  were  to  be  imitators  of  him 
in  their  obedience  to  them.  Therefore  as  we  read  them 
we  have  sidelights  thrown  upon  the  character  of  the  apostle 
who  had  taught  and  preached  and  practiced  these  things. 
What  do  they  tell  us  concerning  the  apostle  Paul  ? 

( 1 )  His  Steadfastness  and  his  Love  for  His  Friends 
(verse  1).  He  had  a  genius  for  friendship.  He  bound  his 
friends  to  him  with  chords  of  steel.  They  were  ready  to 
sacrifice  anything  for  him.  The  reason  for  that  was  that 
he  sacrificed  everything  for  them,  and  that  he  had  such  an 
overflowing  love  for  them  that  his  love  begat  love  in  them. 

We  recall  what  Adolph  Saphir  said  of  Paul's  affection: 
"Paul  seems  to  me  to  have  had  a  thousand  hearts.  He  loved 
each  church  as  if  it  were  the  only  one  he  possessed.  He 
felt  their  burden,  he  rejoiced  over  their  order,  steadfastness, 
and  gifts;  he  ceased  not  to  give  thanks  for  them,  and  to 
pray  for  the  blessing  and  help  which  each  of  them  needed ; 
he  remembered  the  names  of  their  saints,  he  watched  over 
them  with  the  affectionateness  of  a  tender  mother  and  nurse. 
While  he  seems  lost  in  the  contemplation  of  divine  truth, 
soaring  like  an  eagle  far  above  vale  and  mountain-peak,  and 
gazing  with  steadfast  eye  into  the  brightness  of  the  sun,  he  is 
always  like  his  blessed  and  dear  Lord,  who  in  homely  but 


442  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

most  touching  language  compares  himself  to  a  hen  gathering 
her  chickens  under  her  wings. 

"In  all  Paul's  epistles  we  feel  the  warm  breath  of  affection ; 
we  hear  the  voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  we  see  the  earn- 
est and  loving  countenance  of  the  fatherly  man.  Even  when 
he  writes  to  the  Romans,  whom  he  had  never  seen,  he  says, 
T  long  to  see  you,  that  I  may  impart  unto  you  some  spiritual 
gift,  that  ye  may  be  established ;  that  is,  that  I  may  be  com- 
forted together  with  you  by  the  mutual  faith  both  of  you  and 
me.'  What  can  exceed  his  tender  love  to  the  churches  of 
Thessalonica  and  Philippi?  or  the  soul-stirring  expostula- 
tions which  in  anguish  of  mind  he  addresses  to  the  Galatians, 
of  whom  he  travails  again  in  birth,  that  Christ  may  be  formed 
in  them?  How  fatherly,  how  considerate,  how  exquisitely 
delicate  and  sensitive  is  he  in  his  treatment  of  the  Corin- 
thian church  !  In  all  his  epistles  he  continually  interrupts  the 
doctrine  with  the  expression  of  his  love,  his  anxiety,  his  joy 
and  sorrow;  we  see  his  heart  bound  up  in  the  churches."  r'4 
No  wonder  they  loved  him.  They  could  depend  upon  him 
always,  for  he  stood  fast  in  the  Lord.  His  was  no  shallow 
love,  easily  exhausted.  His  was  no  fickle  friendship,  soon 
forgetting  those  left  behind.  They  knew  his  steadfastness 
and  they  could  count  upon  it.  He  was  faithful.  He  would 
be  true. 

(2)  His  Sympathies  and  Desires  (verses  2,  3).  His  sym- 
pathy was  with  all  good  men  and  all  good  women,  and  his 
desire  was  that  they  live  in  peace.  It  may  be  that  we 
have  four  proper  names  in  this  passage.  Euodia  and 
Syntyche  are  the  two  women  mentioned,  and  the  name  of 
Clement  follows  later.  It  is  possible  that  Paul  perpetrates 
a  pun  here,  as  he  does  in  the  Epistle  to  Philemon.  There 
he  plays  upon  the  meaning  of  the  proper  name,  Onesimus, 
Profitable  in  meaning  but  un-profitable  in  Philemon's  expe- 
rience.    If  we  can  believe  that  he  is  doing  the  same  thing 


64  Saphir,  The  Epislle  to  the  Hebrews,  I,  pp.  191-11)3. 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS       443 

here,  we  can  read,  "I  beseech  thee  also,  Syzygus  by  name 
and  Syzygus,  yokefellow,  by  nature,  help  these  women." 
This  seems  possible,  but  a  staggering  objection  to  it  is  that 
this  proper  name  ''Syzygus"  has  not  been  found  in  any  liter- 
ature or  in  any  inscriptions,  and  that  is  not  true  of  the  other 
names  here. 

It  is  a  little  puzzling  to  all  the  commentators  to  decide 
who  this  true  yokefellow  is  upon  whose  aid  Paul  calls  at 
this  juncture.  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen  thought 
that  Paul  was  addressing  his  own  wife  in  these  words,  and 
Renan  thinks  it  was  Lydia  to  whom  Paul  had  become 
married  since  her  conversion  at  his  first  visit.  The  trouble 
with  these  suggestions  is  that  the  Greek  adjective  is  mas- 
culine and  cannot  refer  to  any  woman.  Who,  then,  is  the 
man  who  is  Paul's  true  yokefellow?  Lightfoot  and  Hof- 
mann  follow  Victorinus  in  thinking  that  Epaphroditus  is 
meant ;  but  he  is  with  Paul  at  the  time  of  writing  and  would 
not  be  addressed  in  the  epistle.  Others  have  suggested 
Barnabas,  Luke,  Silas,  Timothy.  Riickert  says  Paul  is  ad- 
dressing his  own  brother.  Wieseler  thought  that  the  yoke- 
fellow was  Christ.  Baur  said  he  was  Peter.  If  there  is  no 
proper  name  here,  no  one  knows  who  this  true  yokefellow 
was.  Epaphroditus  and  Clement  and  the  members  of  the 
church  at  Philippi  may  have  known,  when  the  letter  was 
received,  whom  Paul  was  addressing,  but  that  knowledge 
perished  with  them ;  and  the  wild  guesses  made  by  critics 
and  commentators  since  simply  testify  to  our  absolute  ignor- 
ance at  this  point. 

(3)  His  Constant  Rejoicing  in  the  Lord  (verse  4).  Paul's 
joy  was  unceasing  and  unquenchable.  It  was  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  outward  circumstances.  Its  source  was  not  to 
be  found  in  the  finite ;  and  like  its  source  it  was  unchanging 
and  infinite. 

(4)  His  Sweet  Reasonableness  (verse  5) .  It  was  so  called 
by  Matthew  Arnold.  Tyndale  translated  "courtesy."  Cran- 
mer  called  it  "reasonableness."    It  is  a  combination  of  for- 


444  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

bearancc  and  graciousness,  of  modesty  and  courtesy,  of  con- 
sideration and  esteem  such  as  was  characteristic  of  Christ 
and  will  be  manifest  in  the  life  of  every  true  follower  in  his 
footsteps.  Paul  had  it.  He  was  a  true  gentleman  in  his 
dealing  with  everybody,  and  especially  in  his  conduct  toward 
the  aged  and  the  suffering  and  the  weak.  He  was  not  over- 
bearing or  arrogant.  There  was  a  sweet  reasonableness 
about  him  which  made  his  personality  a  most  winning  and 
attractive  one. 

(5)  His  Freedom  from  Anxiety  (verses  6,  7).  Paul's 
fearless  confidence  was  born,  on  the  one  hand,  from  his 
sense  that  the  Lord  was  at  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  from  his 
faith  in  prayer.  In  nothing  could  he  be  anxious  if  the  Lord 
was  at  his  right-hand.  All  things  were  possible  through  the 
strength  given  by  him.  And,  again,  all  things  were  possible 
to  believing  prayer.  As  long  as  God  was  a  prayer-hearing 
and  prayer-answering  God,  why  should  any  child  of  God 
be  anxious  about  anything?  Did  anything  happen  which 
would  cause  his  heart  to  beat  in  alarm  if  he  were  unprotected 
and  alone?  The  peace  of  God  was  pacing  sentry  up  and 
down  before  his  heart  and  no  alarming  thing  could  enter 
there  without  being  challenged  and  robbed  of  all  its  terrors 
before  it  was  allowed  to  pass  to  him.  Did  anything  occur 
which  would  throw  him  into  mental  confusion  if  he  had  to 
rely  on  his  own  strength  of  intellect  and  quickness  of  wit 
alone?  The  peace  of  God  was  pacing  sentry  before  all  his 
thoughts  and  he  never  could  be  taken  off  his  guard  as 
long  as  that  faithful  watcher  remained  at  his  post.  It  passed 
all  understanding  how  Paul  was  kept  from  all  anxiety.  It 
was  the  power  of  prayer  which  did  it.  It  was  the  peace  of 
God  which  did  it.    It  was  the  Lord  at  hand  who  did  it. 

(6)  His  Habitual  High  Thinking  (verse  8).  All  that  was 
worthy  in  the  ideals  of  the  Greek  philosophers  Paul  made  the 
staple  of  his  thought.  He  never  was  fascinated  by  plaus- 
ibility or  deceived  by  sophistry.  He  demanded  always  to 
know  what  was  true,     He  reveled  in  the  august.     He  was 


THE  EPISTLE  TO  THE  PHILIPPIANS      445 

at  home  in  the  heights.  He  delighted  in  that  which  was 
honorable  and  reverend,  sanctioned  by  the  ages  and  the 
generations,  tried  and  true.  He  never  could  be  content 
with  anything  short  of  just  measure  in  dealings  with  God 
and  with  man.  His  theology  was  not  sentimental  or  sick- 
ish  or  soft.  It  had  adamant  in  it.  It  was  founded  upon  the 
rock  of  immutable  justice  and  truth.  He  abominated  any- 
thing which  was  unclean.  He  would  not  tolerate  anything 
which  was  shadowed  or  stained.  He  loved  that  which  was 
crystal-clear  and  diamond-pure,  flawless,  taintless,  whole. 
He  hated  the  least  remnant  of  dirt  and  of  filth  in  morals  or 
in  thought.  He  believed  in  the  beauty  of  holiness.  He 
believed  that  really  lovely  things  never  were  diseased  or 
evil  at  the  root.  He  preferred  to  think  upon  the  things 
which  were  of  gracious  bearing  and  of  good  report.  He 
knew  that  virtue  was  in  these  things  and  that  all  praise 
belonged  to  them.  He  had  learned  that  while  his  mind  was 
filled  with  these  things  he  lived  in  serenity  and  peace.  The 
peace  of  God  kept  guard  over  him.  The  God  of  peace 
kept  pace  with  him. 

8.  Thanks  for  Their  Gift  (4.  10-20).  He  rejoiced  that 
their  thought  fulness  for  him  had  blossomed  forth  again.  It 
had  come  into  his  prison  cell  like  the  fragrance  of  fresh 
roses.  He  had  been  initiated  into  all  the  mysteries  of  Chris- 
tian patience  in  tribulation  and  rejoicing  in  suffering  and 
contentment  in  everything.  He  had  matriculated  in  the 
School  of  Christ.  He  had  learned  much  from  his  Master. 
He  could  do  all  things  in  Him  that  strengthened  him.  They 
were  the  only  ones  with  whom  he  had  opened  a  debit  and 
credit  account.  He  was  indebted  to  them  for  four  contribu- 
tions now — three  sent  to  Thessalonica  and  Corinth  and  one 
to  Rome.  He  believed  that  their  generosity  was  well-pleas- 
ing to  God,  and  God  would  supply  every  need  of  their  souls 
according  to  his  riches  in  glory  in  Christ  Jesus.  To  him  be 
glory.     Amen. 

g.  Salutations  (4.  21,  22). 


44rJ  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

10.  The  Benediction  (4.  23).  This  is  not  a  theological 
epistle,  and  therefore  it  is  not  an  especially  Christological 
one.  Yet  we  count  the  name  of  Christ  forty-two  times  in 
this  short  letter,  and  the  pronouns  referring  to  him  are 
many  more.  Paul  cannot  write  about  anything  without  writ- 
ing about  Christ.  He  ends,  "The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  be  with  your  spirit."  The  spirit  of  Christ  and  the 
grace  of  Christ  are  in  the  entire  epistle. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES 

I.  The  Name 

The  Pastoral  Epistles  are  addressed  to  Titus  and  to 
Timothy,  who  have  been  left  in  charge  of  churches  by  the 
apostle  Paul.  He  takes  occasion  to  counsel  them  concerning 
the  administration  of  church  affairs,  and  since  so  large  a 
portion  of  their  contents  have  to  do  with  pastoral  duties  and 
responsibilities,  the  epistles  have  been  called  the  Pastoral 
Epistles.  This  name  was  applied  to  them  for  the  first  time 
by  Anton  in  1753  and  Wegscheider  in  1810  and  by  Eichhorn 
in  1812,  and  since  their  day  it  has  come  into  general  use.  It 
is  not  an  altogether  appropriate  name,  however,  for  Paul 
as  he  wrote  seems  to  have  had  in  his  thought  the  churches 
which  these  men  served  as  well  as  the  men  themselves,  and 
the  epistles  take  on  a  half-public  character.  They  are 
addressed  directly  to  individuals,  but  they  include  much  in 
their  material  which  is  of  interest  to  the  general  church  and 
which  has  been  of  service  to  all  the  Christian  centuries. 

II.  Objections  to  Their  Pauline  Authorship 

The  genuineness  of  these  epistles  has  been  questioned 
more  widely  than  that  of  any  of  the  other  epistles  ascribed  to 
Paul.  The  reasons  for  this  questioning  are  found  mainly 
in  the  facts  mentioned  in  the  epistles  themselves,  in  their 
style  and  their  doctrine,  and  in  the  ecclesiastical  and  heret- 
ical developments  which  they  presuppose.  We  will  look  at 
these  in  order. 

1.  We  can  find  no  place  anywhere  in  the  narrative  of  the 
book  of  Acts  into  which  we  can  fit  the  historical  and  bio- 

449 


450  PAUL  AND  I  IIS  EPISTLES 

graphical  data  furnished  us  in  these  epistles.  The  attempt 
has  been  made  more  than  once  to  suggest  a  time  in  Faul's 
missionary  career  as  outlined  in  the  book  of  Acts  when  these 
events  could  have  taken  place,  but  the  general  impression 
is  that  any  suggested  date  involves  improbabilities  and 
impossibilities,  and  therefore  for  the  most  part  such  at- 
tempts have  been  given  up.  (i)  A  voyage  to  Crete  is  sug- 
gested in  Titus  I.  5,  in  which  Paul  was  accompanied  by 
Titus.  Titus  is  not  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Acts  at  all, 
and  nowhere  in  that  book  are  we  told  of  any  missionary 
campaign  by  Paul  in  Crete.  (2)  In  Titus  3.  12  we  read  that 
Paul  intended  to  spend  a  winter  in  Nicopolis.  That  inten- 
tion surely  never  was  carried  out  at  any  time  during  the 
missionary  journeys  detailed  in  Acts.  (3)  Timothy  and 
Paul  are  in  Ephesus  together  and  Timothy  is  left  in  charge 
there  while  Paul  goes  into  Macedonia  (1  Tim.  1.  3).  When 
Paul  left  Ephesus  to  go  into  Macedonia  in  Acts  20.  I  Tim- 
othy accompanied  him  (Acts  20.  4),  and  we  have  no  hint  in 
the  narrative  that  Timothy  was  left  in  charge  of  the  church 
there  at  any  time.  (4)  In  2  Tim.  4.  20  Paul  is  giving 
Timothy  the  news  of  his  journey  to  Rome,  and  he  tells 
him  that  Trophimus  had  been  left  at  Miletus  sick.  In  the 
book  of  Acts  when  Paul  visits  Miletus  with  Trophimus  he 
is  on  his  way  to  Jerusalem  and  not  to  Rome,  and  he  did  not 
leave  Trophimus  there  sick,  but  took  him  with  him,  and  it 
was  the  fact  that  Trophimus  had  been  seen  in  his  company 
which  helped  to  set  afloat  the  rumor  that  Paul  had  taken 
Trophimus  into  the  temple  with  him  and  so  defiled  the  holy 
place ;  and  that  rumor  started  the  riot  which  ended  in  Paul's 
imprisonment  (Acts  21.  29).  (5)  In  the  same  passage  in 
Timothy  Paul  says  that  Erastus  remained  in  Corinth.  In 
the  book  of  Acts  Timothy  is  a  member  of  Paul's  company 
after  he  leaves  Corinth  for  the  last  time,  and  that  was  two 
or  more  years  before.  Paul's  imprisonment  in  Rome  began. 
Paul  would  not  be  likely  to  write  to  Timothy  about  what 
happened  years  before,  and  he  would  not  need  to  write  to 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  451 

Timothy  the  things  which  Timothy  already  knew.  (6)  In 
2  Tim.  4.  13  Paul  asks  Timothy  to  bring  with  him  the  cloak 
and  the  books  which  had  been  left  with  Carpus  at  Troas. 
This  epistle  evidently  is  written  at  the  end  of  an  imprison- 
ment at  Rome,  and  that  would  mean,  according  to  the  nar- 
rative in  Acts,  that  these  things  had  been  left  by  Paul  for 
an  interval  of  several  years  before  he  had  asked  for  them; 
and  that,  while  possible,  does  not  seem  likely.  In  the  dun- 
geon at  Rome  he  would  have  needed  that  cloak  at  once,  and 
Paul  would  not  be  without  books  any  longer  than  was  neces- 
sary wherever  he  might  have  leisure  to  use  them.  These 
are  samples  of  the  difficulties  we  encounter  when  we  try  to 
find  a  place  in  Luke's  account  of  Paul  for  the  circumstances 
presupposed  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  Many  think  that  they 
cannot  have  been  written  by  Paul  because,  according  to  the 
book  of  Acts,  Paul  never  was  in  these  situations. 

2.  These  epistles  are  inferior  in  literary  merit  to  the  other 
epistles  of  Paul.  Davidson  declares  that  they  are  "without 
vigor,  point,  spiritual  depth,  or  richness."  McGiftert  sug- 
gests that  they  are  too  loose  and  illogical  to  have  been  written 
by  Paul.  He  says  that  in  the  Pastorals,  "and  especially  in 
First  Timothy,  we  have  for  the  most  part  a  mere  collection 
of  detached  passages,  betraying  a  writer  largely  lacking  in 
the  directness,  incisiveness,  and  grasp  which  were  so  char- 
acteristic of"  the  apostle.1  Many  think  that  this  difference 
of  style  as  compared  with  the  other  Pauline  epistles  marks 
a  difference  of  authorship. 

3.  The  Pastoral  Epistles  have  notable  peculiarities  of 
words  and  phrases  not  found  in  any  of  the  other  Pauline 
epistles.  (1)  We  are  told  that  in  First  Timothy  there  are 
seventy-four  words  not  used  elsewhere.  In  Second  Timothy 
there  are  forty-six,  and  in  Titus  forty-eight.  This  means 
that  between  four  and  four  and  a  half  per  cent  of  the  words 
used  in  these  epistles  are  new  and  peculiar  words  as  com- 


1  McGiffert,  The  Apostolic  Age,  p.  401. 


452  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

pared  with  the  previous  Pauline  vocabulary.2  Another 
authority  estimates  that  in  the  thirteen  chapters  of  these 
epistles  there  are  one  hundred  and  seventy-one  words  used 
nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament — an  average  of  thirteen 
to  the  chapter.3  Among  the  new  words  we  notice  (a)  the 
first  occurrence  of  the  word  "neophyte"  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  i  Tim.  3.  6.  (b)  The  author  of  these  epistles  writes 
about  the  devil.  Paul  always  said  "Satan,"  with  two  excep- 
tions— Eph.  4.  27,  and  6.  II.  (c)  The  term  used  in  these 
epistles  for  the  second  coming  is  "epiphany."  Paul's  term 
is  "parousia."  (d)  The  word  "piety"  never  is  found  in  the 
other  Pauline  epistles,  and  it  is  found  only  five  times  in  the 
rest  of  the  New  Testament — in  Second  Peter  four  times 
and  in  Acts  once ;  but  in  these  Pastoral  Epistles  it  occurs 
eleven  times,  and  nine  times  in  First  Timothy  alone.  (c) 
"Sound  doctrine"  is  repeatedly  emphasized  here  and  no- 
where else  in  the  Pauline  epistles.  (/)  In  the  salutations 
of  these  epistles  a  new  and  third  term  is  introduced.  Instead 
of  the  "grace  and  peace"  of  the  other  Pauline  epistles  we 
have  here,  "grace,  mercy,  and  peace."  (2)  Among  the  new 
phrases  we  notice,  (a)  the  phrase  found  only  here  in  the 
New  Testament  and  therefore  characteristic  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles,  "Faithful  is  the  saying."  (b)  Another  character- 
istic phrase  is  "God  the  Saviour."  It  occurs  here  six  times, 
and  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  other  Pauline  epistles. 
It  occurs  only  twice  elsewhere  in  the  New  Testament — 
2  Pet.  1.  11,  Jude  25.  These  new  phrases  and  this  new 
vocabulary  are  thought  by  some  to  betoken  a  new  author- 
ship. 

4.  There  are  noticeable  differences  in  theology.  ( 1 )  These 
epistles  are  more  utilitarian  than  the  previous  Pauline 
epistles  are.  Paul  has  been  called  the  apostle  of  faith  and 
James  the  apostle  of  good  works.  Something  of  the  same 
contrast    could    be    drawn    between    the    Pauline    epistles 

2  Book  by  Book,  p.  152. 

'  Findlay,  The  Epistles  of  Paul,  p.  214. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  453 

and  the  Pastoral  Epistles.  There  justification  by  faith 
and  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit  were  fundamental, 
and  here  piety  and  good  works  are  emphasized.  (2)  Faith 
in  the  Pauline  epistles  was  a  subjective  experience.  In  the 
Pastoral  Epistles  it  is  more  objective  in  character.  The  more 
profound  conception  has  given  way  to  the  more  common- 
place satisfaction  with  morality  and  faithfulness  to  a  creed. 

5.  These  epistles  represent  a  degree  of  development  in 
the  organization  of  the  church  which  marks  them  as  belong- 
ing to  a  later  stage  of  church  history.  Their  author  is 
more  concerned  about  church  organization  than  Paul  ever 
seemed  to  be.  It  has  been  held  that  the  emphasis  upon 
officialism  and  the  hierarchical  tendencies  manifest  here 
belong  to  a  later  age  than  that  of  Paul. 

6.  We  used  to  be  told  that  the  doctrine  of  these  epistles 
was  aimed  at  the  Gnosticism  of  the  second  century,  and 
many  still  think  that  the  growth  of  error  indicated  here  is 
too  rank  to  fall  within  the  time  of  Paul. 

7.  It  has  been  objected  further  that  Paul  would  not  have 
written  to  Timothy,  "Let  no  man  despise  thy  youth"  ( 1  Tim. 
4.  12),  and  he  would  not  have  called  him  "my  child"  and 
"my  child  Timothy"  (1  Tim.  1.  18;  2  Tim.  2.  1),  and  he 
would  not  have  exhorted  him  to  "flee  youthful  lusts"  (2 
Tim.  2.  22),  because  Timothy  must  have  been  about  thirty- 
five  years  old  at  this  time.  He  was  no  child  and  no  youth, 
but  a  man  grown.  McGiffert  thinks  that  "the  instructions 
which  Paul  gives,  and  the  warnings  and  exhortations  which 
he  addresses  to  Timothy  and  Titus,  are  of  a  kind  entirely 
suited  to  immature  and  untried  disciples,  or  to  the  com- 
mon multitude  of  Christians,  but  certainly  not  at  all  suited 
to  men  such  as  they  had  proved  themselves  to  be.  The 
author  instructs  them,  especially  Timothy,  in  regard  to  the 
most  elementary  duties  of  the  Christian  life  and  the  most 
elementary  truths  of  Christianity ;  he  warns  them  against 
vice  and  lusts,  and  urges  them  repeatedly  to  be  honest, 
faithful,  sober,  and  pure,  as  if  he  were  greatly  in  doubt  not 


454  PAUL  AND  HIS  EriSTLES 

only  as  to  their  official  but  also  as  to  their  private  char- 
acter." 4  McGiffert  concludes,  therefore,  that  Timothy  and 
Titus  in  these  epistles  are  simply  lay  figures  through  whom 
the  pseudonymous  author  addresses  the  church  at  large. 

8.  In  Acts  20.  25  Paul  is  bidding  farewell  to  the  elders  of 
Ephesus  and  he  tells  them,  "I  know  that  ye  all  shall  see 
my  face  no  more."  If  we  recognize  the  genuineness  of  First 
Timothy,  we  must  deny  the  truth  of  his  prophecy,  for  in 
First  Timothy  we  find  a  visit  to  Ephesus  implied  (1.  3) 
which  must  have  been  subsequent  to  this  farewell  at  Miletus, 
and  they  did  see  his  face  again. 

9.  If  Paul  had  just  been  at  Ephesus  (1  Tim.  1.  3)  and 
was  hoping  to  return  there  in  a  short  time  (1  Tim.  3.  14), 
there  was  no  need  of  his  writing  any  letter.  He  could  have 
told  Timothy  all  these  things  by  word  of  mouth  when  they 
were  together. 

These  are  the  principal  objections  made  to  the  genuineness 
of  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  and  those  who  are  convinced  by 
them  believe  that  these  epistles  were  written  by  some  one 
other  than  the  apostle  Paul  at  a  date  much  later  than  his 
life,  and  that  Paul's  name  was  attached  to  them  to  give 
them  authority,  or  possibly  because  there  were  genuine 
fragments  of  Pauline  epistles  about  which  these  longer 
epistles  were  built  up.  As  they  stand  now  they  are  either 
partly  or  wholly  forged  in  Paul's  name.  We  will  look  at 
these  objections  in  order  and  see  whether  they  can  be  an- 
swered satisfactorily. 

III.  Answers  to  These  Objections 

1.  It  is  true  that  the  facts  of  these  epistles  cannot  be 
harmonized  with  the  narrative  found  in  the  book  of  Acts. 
If  we  are  limited  to  the  data  concerning  the  life  of  Paul 
furnished  us  in  that  book,  we  must  conclude  that  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  are  not  genuine.  However,  there  is  no  necessity 
for  our  feeling  thus  limited.  Paul  may  have  been  released 
4  McGiffert,  op.  cil.,  pp.  399,  400. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  455 

from  the  Roman  imprisonment  in  which  the  book  of  Acts 
so  strangely  and  so  abruptly  leaves  him,  and  if  he  were 
released,  then  all  the  events  found  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
may  have  taken  place  just  as  they  suggest  and  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  themselves  may  be  genuine.  Granting  the  possibility 
of  Paul's  liberation  and  longer  life,  we  can  believe  in  the 
genuineness  of  these  later  epistles ;  but  Paul's  liberation  must 
be  assumed.  Weiss  concludes:  "It  can  neither  be  proved 
nor  denied  on  historical  grounds.  ...  If  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  are  to  be  pronounced  genuine,  they  can  belong  only 
to  a  period  of  the  apostle's  life  lying  beyond  that  with  which 
we  are  acquainted"  through  the  book  of  Acts  and  the  other 
Pauline  epistles.  "The  possibility  remains  that  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  are  the  sole  monuments  and  evidences  of  a  life 
period  subsequent  to  the  first  Roman  captivity  that  have 
come  down  to  us."  5  We  agree,  then,  with  the  objection  as 
stated,  that  the  facts  suggested  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  can- 
not find  a  place  anywhere  in  the  narrative  of  the  book  of 
Acts,  but  we  refuse  to  believe  that  the  question  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  epistles  is  thus  closed.  We  are  disposed 
to  think  that  a  place  can  be  found  for  them  after  the  end 
of  Luke's  narrative. 

2.  We  are  ready  to  agree,  again,  that  these  Pastoral 
Epistles  are  inferior  to  the  other  epistles  of  Paul  in  literary 
merit.  However,  we  do  not  concede  that  that  fact,  neces- 
sarily settles  the  question  of  their  genuineness.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  seems  self-evident  to  us  that  no  writer  always  is  at 
his  best,  maintaining  a  continuously  high  level  of  excellence, 
and  in  these  private  letters  to  personal  friends  Paul  could 
not  be  expected  to  be  as  careful  in  composition  as  when  he 
was  writing  to  great  churches.  A  recent  writer  has  well 
declared  that  this  whole  method  of  criticism  "really  postu- 
lates that  a  writer  must  always  preserve  the  same  dull 
monotone,  or  always  confine  himself  to  the  same  transcend- 


5  Weiss,  Introduction,  I,  pp.  387,  388. 


456  PAUL  AXD  HIS  EPISTLES 

ent  heights.  He  must  never  break  out  in  a  new  direction, 
never  descend  to  the  valleys  or  the  busy  scenes  of  common 
life ;  above  all,  he  dare  not  widen  his  thoughts  with  the 
process  of  the  suns,  or  differ  from  the  utterances  of  his 
early  days.  He  must  see  and  say  everything  at  once ;  hav- 
ing had  his  vision  and  his  dream,  he  must  henceforth  be 
like  a  star  and  dwell  apart.  It  is  not  permissible,  having 
been  grave,  ever  to  be  gay,  or  gay,  ever  to  be  grave.  To 
be  stereotyped  is  his  only  salvation.  Thus  do  the  men  of 
the  midnight  oil  understand  the  men  of  action  and  life.  On 
such  principles  there  is  not  a  writer  of  note  large  parts  of 
whose  sayings  and  doings  could  not  be  proved  to  be  by 
some  one  else.  It  cannot  be  conceived  that  the  author  of 
'Sordello'  could  ever  have  written  the  simple  lyric  of  'Evelyn 
Hope';  or  that  the  mind  that  produced  Tn  Memoriam' 
could  sink  to  the  bathos  of 

Old  Year  roaring  and  blowing, 
And  New  Year  blowing  and  roaring. 

Burns  could  not  have  written  half  the  poems  attributed  to 
him,  for  there  are  'radical  and  inexplicable  differences'  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  poet  who  wrote  'Tarn  o'  Shanter,'  as 
compared  with  the  other  poet  who  wrote  'To  Mary  in 
Heaven.'  "  6  As  long  as  these  variations  in  style  are  so 
apparent  in  contemporary  writers  we  can  well  believe  that 
any  such  variation  would  be  possible  in  the  apostle  Paul. 

3.  We  are  not  impressed  much  either  with  the  argument 
from  the  peculiar  words  and  phrases.  It  may  be  true  that 
the  Pastoral  Epistles  "have  twice  as  many  unusual  words 
as  any  other  of  Paul's,  and  three  times  as  many  as  most ;" 
but  what  of  it  ?  There  are  peculiar  words  in  all  the  Pauline 
epistles — in  Romans,  one  hundred  and  eleven  ;  in  First  and 
Second  Corinthians,  one  hundred  and  eighty-six  ;  in  Gala- 
tians,  fifty-seven;  in  Philippians,  fifty-four;  in  Colossians 
and  Ephesians  together,  one  hundred  and  forty-three.  It  is 
6  Shaw,  op.  cit.,  pp.  483,  484. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  457 

natural  that  a  man's  vocabulary  would  increase  with  the 
years,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  case  with  Paul.  In 
First  and  Second  Thessalonians  there  are  five  peculiar  words 
to  the  chapter,  in  Philippians  ten  to  the  chapter,  and  in  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  thirteen.  In  different  writings  of  the 
same  author  the  variation  in  the  number  of  unusual  words 
is  sometimes  as  great  as  three  to  one.  In  the  Irving  edition 
of  Shakespeare  a  list  of  the  peculiar  words  is  given  at  the 
end  of  each  play  and  the  proportion  of  these  words  to  the 
page  varies  from  3.4  to  10.4,  a  variation  of  more  than 
three  to  one.  In  Professor  Masson's  edition  of  Milton  he 
shows  that  Milton  in  L'Allegro  uses  only  ten  per  cent  of 
non-Saxon  words,  while  in  the  sixth  book  of  Paradise  Lost 
he  uses  twenty  per  cent,  and  in  other  places  even  thirty 
per  cent,  another  variation  of  more  than  three  to  one.  Faul 
is  in  good  company,  then,  as  far  as  the  proportion  of  varia- 
tion in  his  vocabulary  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  is  concerned. 
It  is  no  greater  than  that  found  in  other  great  authors. 

Reuss  has  pointed  out  the  fact  that  the  two  Epistles  to 
the  Corinthians  contain  as  many  words  not  found  in  Romans 
and  Galatians  as  the  Pastoral  Epistles  contain  of  words  not 
found  in  all  the  other  letters  of  Paul.  Paul  was  a  genius. 
His  mental  horizon  always  was  widening.  His  vocabulary 
continually  was  enriched.  The  Greek  language  had  an 
inexhaustible  wealth  of  material,  and  Paul  was  appropriat- 
ing more  and  more  of  it  to  the  service  of  his  Christian  mis- 
sionary labors.  He  was  not  content  with  any  stock  of  stereo- 
typed formulae.  Pie  had  new  things  to  proclaim  and  he  put 
them  into  new  words  and  new  phrases.  Mentally  and  spirit- 
ually he  was  progressive  and  his  increasing  vocabulary  is 
an  evidence  of  that  fact.  Therefore  the  very  peculiarities 
of  these  Pastoral  Epistles,  instead  of  being  a  proof  of  their 
ungenuineness,  may  well  be  considered  a  proof  of  their 
Pauline  authorship. 

Who  but  Paul  himself  would  have  added  that  word 
"mercy"  to  the  salutation  ?    A  forger  would  have  been  very 


458  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

careful  to  make  no  change  in  the  usual  Pauline  formula. 
Who  but  Paul  himself  would  have  called  Paul  the  chief  of 
sinners?  Would  any  forger  have  dared  to  do  that?  One 
cannot  but  feel  that  any  argument  from  literary  peculiar- 
ities is  always  a  most  precarious  one,  since  these  can  be 
paralleled  in  the  different  writings  of  the  same  author  in 
so  many  instances  in  both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  times, 
and  since  so  many  attempts  to  identify  anonymous  author- 
ship by  means  of  the  internal  phenomena  in  our  own  day 
have  gone  so  strangely  awry.  We  conclude  that  these  pecu- 
liarities in  the  Pastoral  Epistles  prove  nothing  against  the 
Pauline  authorship.  They  are  perfectly  possible  with  a 
man  of  such  active  brain  and  versatile  genius  as  that  of 
Paul. 

4.  The  differences  in  doctrine  are  more  apparent  than  real. 
Paul  emphasizes  the  necessity  of  good  works  in  all  of  his 
epistles.  He  never  was  a  mere  theorist.  He  always  insisted 
on  a  practical  application  of  the  doctrine  he  presented.  A 
new  meaning  given  to  the  word  "faith"  would  not  prove 
that  Paul  did  not  so  use  it.  In  his  Commentary  on  Romans 
Sanday  tells  us  that  we  must  distinguish  between  at  least 
seven  different  senses  given  to  the  word  "faith"  in  that  one 
epistle,  and  he  says  that  "Paul  has  all  these  meanings  before 
him;  and  he  glances  from  one  to  another  as  the  hand  of  a 
violin-player  runs  over  the  strings  of  his  violin."  7  It  would 
not  be  strange,  then,  if  in  the  course  of  the  years  Paul 
should  add  still  another  meaning  to  his  list,  and  that  the 
subjective  faith  of  which  he  wrote  in  Romans  should  be- 
come objectivized  and  crystallized  into  a  creed  in  the  Pas- 
torals. 

5.  The  ecclesiastical  organization  represented  in  the 
Pastoral  Epistles  may  be  a  more  developed  one  than  that 
of  the  earlier  epistles.  It  is  but  natural  that  it  should  be. 
Affairs   were   moving  very    fast   in   these   beginning   days. 


7  Sanday,  Commentary,  pp.  33,  34. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  459 

They  were  creative  clays  in  every  department  of  church  life. 
There  were  no  stereotyped  forms  to  be  maintained.  The 
church  was  at  liberty  to  establish  any  institution  or  office 
which  seemed  likely  to  serve  its  present  need.  However, 
the  organization  represented  in  these  epistles  is  not  that  of 
the  second  century.  Bishops  and  presbyters  are  synonymous 
here.  They  were  distinguished  from  each  other  in  the 
second  century. 

6.  It  cannot  be  proven  that  the  doctrine  of  these  epistles 
is  aimed  at  second-century  Gnosticism.  There  are  certain 
Gnostic  terms  here — "aeons,"  "gnosis,"  "antitheses" — but 
they  are  used  here  in  a  vague  and  general  sense  unlike  the 
definiteness  of  their  meaning  in  the  second  century,  and  it 
would  seem  more  probable  that  the  Gnostics  had  borrowed 
these  terms  from  these  epistles  and  had  developed  and 
defined  them  in  their  later  use.  Error  grows  rank  in  the 
time  of  these  epistles,  but  that  is  true  in  any  generation,  and 
it  surely  cannot  be  argued  that  it  is  peculiar  to  any  earlier 
or  later  age. 

7.  Paul  was  an  old  man,  and  to  a  man  sixty-five  years  of 
age  anyone  who  is  only  thirty-five  always  will  seem  young; 
and  Timothy  was  young  to  be  set  over  elders  in  such  a 
responsible  position  as  that  in  the  church  at  Ephesus.  If 
Paul  calls  Timothy  a  youth,  he  is  only  following  the  custom 
in  the  Roman  world  to  which  they  both  belonged,  for  by 
the  Romans  boys  were  called  children  until  they  were  seven- 
teen years  old  and  youths  until  they  were  forty-six.  At 
Rome  itself  forty-three  was  the  legal  age  for  a  consulship. 
Timothy  had  been  converted  when  he  was  sixteen,  and  had 
accompanied  Paul  on  his  missionary  journeys  while  still  a 
lad,  and  Paul  never  would  get  over  the  feeling  that  his  youth 
and  inexperience  was  in  need  of  constant  supervision  and 
fatherly  advice. 

8.  When  Paul  says,  "I  know  that  ye  shall  see  my  face  no 
more"  ( Acts  20.  25),  he  is  not  uttering  an  infallible  prophecy 
but  is  expressing  his  individual  conviction.     He  feels  per- 


460  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

feclly  sure  about  it,  but  it  docs  not  follow  that  it  will  be 
infallibly  fulfilled.  In  Phil.  I.  25  Taul  says,  "1  know 
that  I  shall  abide,  yea,  and  abide  with  you  all,  for  your  prog- 
ress and  joy  in  the  faith;  that  your  glorying  may  abound 
in  Christ  Jesus  in  me  through  my  presence  with  you  again." 
Is  this  an  infallible  prophecy?  Was  Paul  liberated  from 
the  Roman  imprisonment  and  did  he  visit  Philippi  again 
and  abide  with  the  disciples  there  for  some  time?  If  this 
utterance  is  a  proof  of  these  facts,  then  the  chief  objections 
to  the  genuineness  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  go  by  the  board. 
How  about  that  other  statement  made  by  Paul  before 
Agrippa — "King  Agrippa,  believest  thou  the  prophets?  I 
know  that  thou  believest"  ?  8  Was  King  Agrippa  a  believer  ? 
Not  in  the  sense  that  Paul  was,  surely.  In  all  these  passages 
Paul  is  simply  asserting  his  own  profound  conviction.  lie 
would  be  the  last  to  claim  that  his  conviction  carried  with 
it  any  infallible  certainty  of  fulfillment. 

9.  We  are  not  sure  that  Paul  had  been  with  Timothy  in 
Ephesus  just  before  writing  First  Timothy.  That  is  an 
inference  from  1  Tim.  1.  3,  and  all  that  we  are  told  there  is 
that  Paul  had  exhorted  Timothy  to  tarry  in  Ephesus  when 
he  himself  was  going  into  Macedonia.  He  may  have  sent 
that  exhortation  to  Timothy  by  letter  from  almost  any  point 
in  Asia  Minor  or  Greece.  In  1  Tim.  3.  14,  15  we  learn  that 
Paul  hoped  to  visit  Timothy  shortly  in  Ephesus,  but  that  it 
was  altogether  uncertain  whether  he  would  be  able  to  do 
so,  and  in  the  possibility  that  he  may  tarry  long  or  not  be 
able  to  come  at  all  he  writes  his  letter,  that  Timothy  may 
know  how  to  behave  himself  in  the  house  of  God.  Since  the 
past  visit  is  so  doubtful  and  the  future  one  so  uncertain, 
neither  would  seem  to  be  any  bar  to  the  possibility  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  epistle. 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  at  the  end  of  this  discussion? 
No  objection  brought  against  these  epistles  seems  to  us  to 

8  Acts  26.  27. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  461 

be  in  any  degree  a  decisive  one.  With  any  predisposition 
to  believe  in  the  genuineness  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  any 
or  all  of  the  objections  to  them  will  fail  to  convince.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  seems  equally  clear  that  with  any  predis- 
position to  doubt  their  genuineness  no  satisfactory  argu- 
ment can  be  advanced  in  favor  of  them.  As  far  as  the 
internal  phenomena  are  concerned  there  can  be  no  certainty 
in  either  way.  There  are  great  difficulties  barring  a  con- 
clusion either  for  or  against.  Weiss  says,  "Since  the 
apostle's  release  from  the  Roman  captivity  cannot  be  proved 
by  any  historical  evidence  from  these  epistles  if  they  are 
not  genuine ;  and  since  their  genuineness  can  only  be  proved 
on  the  assumption  that  this  release  did  take  place,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  we  have  here  a  circular  proof  that  does 
not  admit  of  a  definite  scientific  decision."  9 

We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  that  the  author- 
ities differ  widely  in  their  conclusions  at  this  point.  The 
following  decided  against  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistles: 
Baur,  Beyschlag,  Davidson,  Hatch,  Hilgenfeld,  Holtzmann, 
Julicher,  Mangold,  Meyer,  Schenkel,  Schwegler,  Weiz- 
sacker.  The  following  are  ready  to  recognize  that  certain 
fragments  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  are  genuine  and  have 
been  interpolated  in  these  later  productions.  Of  course 
the  decisions  as  to  the  exact  extent  of  the  interpolations  are 
various,  but  in  this  class  of  mediating  critics  we  may  num- 
ber Bacon,  Clemen,  Credner,  Ewald,  Harnack,  Hausrath, 
Hesse,  Hitzig,  Immer,  Krenkel,  Knoke,  Lemme,  McGiffert, 
Moffatt,  Peake,  Pfleiderer,  Renan,  Reville,  Sabatier, 
Strachan,  von  Soden.  The  genuineness  of  the  epistles  as 
a  whole  has  been  ably  defended  by  Adeney,  Alford,  Barth, 
Baumgarten,  Beck,  Bernard,  Bertrand,  Bowen,  Cony- 
beare  and  Howson,  Cramer,  Dods,  Dubois,  Fairbairn,  Fal- 
coner, Farrar,  Findlay,  Gilbert,  Godet,  Gloag,  Good, 
Guericke,  Herzog,   Hofmann,   Hort,   Humphreys,   Huther, 


9  Weiss,  op.  cit.,  p.  419. 


&> 


462  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

James,  Knowling,  Lange,  Laughlin,  Light  foot,  Kollin 
Macpherson,  Plummer,  Plumptre,  Planck,  Purves,  Otto, 
Ramsay,  Salmon,  Sanday,  Schaff,  Shaw,  Steinmetz,  Spitta, 
Wace,  Wieseler,  Wiesinger,  Weiss,  Van  Oosterzee,  Zahn. 

IV.  Conclusions 

In  the  lack  of  direct  historical  evidence  we  can  arrive 
at  only  tentative  conclusions.  The  following  seem  to  us 
to  be  the  probabilities  in  the  case : 

1.  Paul  was  liberated  from  the  Roman  imprisonment  of 
which  we  read  in  the  book  of  Acts.  Some  reasons  may  be 
adduced  for  this  supposition.  (1)  In  Josephus  we  read 
of  a  great  shipwreck  at  about  this  time  in  which  many  Jews 
were  drowned.  It  is  possible  that  Paul's  accusers  were  on 
their  way  to  Rome  in  this  ill-fated  vessel  and  that  the  case 
against  him  collapsed  with  their  disappearance  and  con- 
sequent failure  to  appear  against  him.  Of  course  we  cannot 
be  sure  of  this.  (2)  Even  if  the  case  came  to  trial,  we  can 
be  sure  that  the  testimony  of  Festus  and  Agrippa  and  Lysias 
and  Julius  would  be  favorable  to  Paul,  and  this  Roman 
testimony  would  be  likely  to  outweigh  any  counter  charges 
on  the  part  of  the  Jews.  (3)  Possibly  the  best  reason  for 
supposing  that  Paul  was  released  is  to  be  found  in  his  own 
confident  expectation  of  that  event  of  his  trial.  lie  writes 
to  Philemon  to  prepare  him  a  lodging,  for  he  hopes  that 
through  the  prayers  of  his  friends  he  shall  be  granted  unto 
them.10  lie  writes  to  the  Philippians  that  he  knows  that 
he  will  abide  in  the  flesh  and  be  present  with  them  again.11 
Something  must  have  happened  to  give  Paul  this  assurance 
of  his  liberation.  He  seems  to  have  no  doubt  about  it,  and 
in  the  absence  of  all  other  information  this  assurance  may 
in  itself  furnish  a  presumption  of  the  fact.  (4)  To  this 
presumption  we  may  add  the  general  tradition  in  the  early 
church  to  the  same  effect.     Clement  of  Rome  in  the  first 


10  Philem.  22. 

11  Phil.  1.  25,  26. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  463 

century  wrote  that  Paul,  having  come  to  the  limit  of  the 
West,  suffered  martyrdom.12  We  know  that  Paul  intended 
to  make  a  journey  to  Spain,13  and  this  testimony  of  Clement 
generally  is  supposed  to  witness  to  the  fact  that  he  finally 
was  enabled  to  fulfill  this  intention.  The  Muratorian 
fragment,  about  A.  D.  170,  mentions  Paul's  journey  to 
Spain,  but  the  sentence  is  incomplete  and  we  cannot  be 
sure  of  the  whole  of  it.  Eusebius,  in  the  fourth  century, 
says,  "There  is  a  tradition  that  the  apostle  after  his  defense 
again  set  forth  to  the  ministry  of  his  preaching,  and  hav- 
ing entered  Rome  a  second  time  was  martyred."  14  Jerome 
and  Chrysostom,  in  the  fifth  century,  followed  by  Theo- 
doret  and  many  of  the  Fathers,  tell  us  that  Paul  preached 
in  Spain.  We  think  that  these  testimonies  from  the  early 
days  must  have  had  some  ground  for  their  existence;  and 
if  they  represent  the  fact  in  the  case,  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
may  well  be  a  proof  of  Paul's  later  missionary  labors. 
With  Paul  in  Spain  and  Crescens  in  Gaul  and  Titus  in 
Dalmatia,  it  is  evident  that  the  missionary  map  of  the 
world  was  changing  very  rapidly  in  these  days.  Its  fron- 
tiers were  being  extended  westward,  northwestward  and 
northeastward  from  Rome.  New  territories  were  being 
invaded  and  new  realms  won  for  the  conquering  Christ. 

Nearly  all  the  English  writers  agree  that  Paul  was 
released  from  the  first  Roman  imprisonment,  and  had 
another  period  of  missionary  activity.  Alford,  Ellicott, 
Lewin,  Lightfoot,  Conybeare  and  Howson,  Farrar,  Plump- 
tre,  Wordsworth,  Findlay,  Salmon,  Shaw  may  be  mentioned 
among  them.  Bleek,  Ewald,  Gieseler,  Godet,  Lange, 
Neander,  Renan,  and  Zahn  also  hold  to  a  second  imprison- 
ment at  Rome,  with  an  aftermath  of  missionary  labor  pre- 
ceding. 

2.  The  Pastoral  Epistles  are  genuine.     (1)  There  is  not 

12  Clement,  ad  Corinth,  c.  5. 

13  Rom.  15.  24. 

"  Hist.  Eccl.,  II,  22. 


464  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

a  particle  of  historical  evidence  to  be  adduced  against  them. 
A  single  authoritative  statement  to  the  effect  that  Paul  was 
martyred  at  the  close  of  the  first  Roman  imprisonment 
would  dispose  of  the  question.  There  is  nothing  of  the 
sort.  (2)  The  internal  evidence  is  rather  in  favor  of  the 
Epistles  than  against  them.  Would  any  forger  have  written 
these  epistles  and  have  assigned  them  to  a  period  when 
Paul  was  known  not  to  have  been  in  existence?  Would 
any  forger  have  filled  them  with  so  many  details  concerning 
individuals  and  events?  Twenty-three  members  of  the 
church  are  mentioned  in  Second  Timothy.  No  other  por- 
tion of  the  New  Testament  is  so  crowded  with  personal 
details.  A  forger  would  have  avoided  all  such  things. 
Their  presence  in  these  epistles  affords  a  presumption  of 
their  genuineness.  (3)  The  external  evidence  is  as  satis- 
factory as  we  could  expect.  It  is  represented  by  Clement 
of  Rome,  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  Irenaeus,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, the  Muratorian  Canon,  and  the  Peshito.  Zahn  says, 
"Traces  of  their  circulation  in  the  church  before  Marcion's 
time  are  clearer  than  those  which  can  be  found  for  Romans 
and  Second  Corinthians."  15  Dean  Alford  says,  "There 
never  was  the  slightest  doubt  in  the  ancient  church  that  the 
Epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus  were  canonical  and  written 
by  Paul."  De  Wette  declares,  "These  epistles  are  as  well 
attested  by  external  or  historical  evidence  as  the  other 
epistles  of  Paul."  Findlay  says  the  same  thing:  "The  wit- 
ness of  the  early  church  to  their  place  in  the  New  Testament 
canon  and  their  Pauline  authorship  is  as  clear,  full  and 
unhesitating  as  that  given  to  the  other  epistles."  16  Weiss 
agrees :  "The  external  attestation  of  the  epistles  is 
quite  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  other  Paulines."  17  Bishop 
Vincent  concluded  his  study  of  this  subject  by  saying: 
"The  work  of  no  ancient  classic  author  has  such  strong 

16  Zahn,  Introduction,  II,  p.  85. 

16  Findlay,  Epistles,  p.  213. 

17  Weiss,  op.  cit.,  p.  411. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  465 

external  and  internal  proof  of  its  genuineness.  The  topog- 
raphy which  is  recognized,  the  opinions  and  social  condi- 
tions of  the  times,  both  in  the  church  and  in  the  world,  the 
object  of  the  writing,  the  theme  discussed,  the  utter  weak- 
ness of  the  impeachment,  the  weight  of  testimony  from 
ages,  all  sustain  the  claim  as  to  Paul.  We  may  be  sure  that 
these  epistles  are  not  a  fraud."  18 

3.  The  Pastoral  Epistles  were  written,  First  Timothy 
and  Titus  in  the  year  A.  D.  67,  from  some  place  in  Asia 
Minor  or  Macedonia  not  now  to  be  fixed  upon  with  any  cer- 
tainty, and  Second  Timothy  in  the  year  68  from  Rome. 

V.  Timothy 

1.  His  Early  History.  Probably  he  was  born  in  Lystra. 
His  father  was  a  Greek  and  he  gave  his  son  a  Greek  name. 
The  mother  was  a  Jewess  either  by  race  or  by  faith.  Her 
name  was  Eunice  and  her  mother's  name  was  Lois.  In 
some  manuscripts  of  the  Western  text  she  is  called  a  widow, 
and  it  may  be  that  Timothy's  father  died  in  his  early  youth. 
The  mother  and  grandmother,  Eunice  and  Lois,  instructed 
Timothy  in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,19  and  he  was  at 
home  in  the  Holy  Book  from  his  youth  up.  Those  two 
devout  women  gave  the  boy  a  religious  training  and  put 
their  impress  upon  him  for  life. 

2.  His  Relationship  to  Paul.  Paul  found  Timothy  at 
Lystra  on  the  first  missionary  journey,  and  the  lad,  prob- 
ably only  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  of  age  at  this  time, 
was  converted.  He  seems  to  have  become  active  at  once  in 
the  Christian  propaganda  and  to  have  been  well  known  in 
the  Christian  communities  at  Lystra  and  Iconium.  When 
Paul  came  to  Lystra  on  the  second  missionary  journey  John 
Mark  had  just  failed  him  and  he  had  parted  company  with 
Barnabas  on  this  account,  and  he  and  Silas  needed  an 
attendant  to  take  John  Mark's  place.    They  found  Timothy 

18  IlifT  School  Studies,  p.  159. 

19  2  Tim.  3.  15. 


466  PAUL  AXD  HIS  EPISTLES 

well  reported  of  in  all  this  region,  and  Paul  asked  him  to 
become  their  traveling  companion  in  their  further  mission- 
ary labors.  It  must  have  been  a  great  sacrifice  for  the 
widowed  mother  and  the  old  grandmother  to  send  forth 
their  cherished  child  into  all  the  inevitable  hardships  and 
sufferings  of  the  missionary  career,  but  they  were  willing 
to  make  the  sacrifice,  as  so  many  mothers  and  grandmothers 
have  been  willing  since. 

Paul  seems  to  have  been  drawn  to  Timothy  from  the 
very  first,  and  Timothy  gave  to  Paul  all  the  hero  worship 
and  personal  devotion  of  which  a  boy's  heart  is  capable. 
Paul  circumcised  him  and  he  was  ordained  to  the  mission- 
ary ministry.20  This  ordination  was  an  impressive  occa- 
sion. Timothy  made  his  confession  of  faith  in  the  presence 
of  many  witnesses.21  The  prophetic  spirit  fell  upon  many 
and  prophecies  were  uttered,  ratifying  the  choice  of  Tim- 
othy and  predicting  his  good  warfare  for  the  Christ.22 
The  presbyters  laid  their  hands  upon  him.23  Paul  fol- 
lowed, and  as  his  hands  rested  upon  Timothy's  head  the 
boy  was  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  its  power  and  love 
and  discipline  remained  with  him  through  life.24  There- 
after no  name  is  associated  more  closely  and  continuously 
with  that  of  Taul  than  the  name  of  Timothy. 

He  went  with  Paul  and  Silas  to  Philippi,  helped  them  to 
organize  the  church  at  Thessalonica,  was  left  at  Berea 
when  Paul  went  to  Athens,  rejoined  Paul  there,  and  was 
dispatched  to  Thessalonica  again,  returned  to  find  Paul  in 
Corinth,  helped  establish  the  church  there,  and  later  labored 
with  Paul  in  the  establishment  of  the  church  at  Ephesus 
and  the  evangelization  of  all  Asia  from  that  center.  From 
Ephesus  he  was  sent  to  Macedonia  and  to  Corinth  on  a 
delicate  and  difficult  mission,  in  which  he  seems  to  have 
failed  to  bring  about  all  the  desired  results.     He  rejoined 

20  Acts  16.  3.  n  I  Tim.  4.  14. 

21  1  Tim.  6.  12.  242  Tim.  1.  6,  7. 

22  1  Tim.  1.  18. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  467 

Paul  in  Macedonia  and  accompanied  him  to  Corinth,  and 
when  Paul  started  on  that  last  journey  to  Jerusalem  Tim- 
othy was  with  him;  and  in  the  book  of  Acts  he  is  mentioned 
last  at  Troas.25  We  learn  from  the  epistles  of  the  Roman 
imprisonment  that  Timothy  was  with  Paul  at  Rome.  Paul 
hoped  to  send  Timothy  to  Philippi  from  Rome.26  At  the 
time  of  the  writing  of  the  Pastoral  Epistles  Timothy  is  in 
Ephesus,  representing  Paul  there  and  in  charge  of  the 
church.  In  the  second  imprisonment  in  Rome  Paul  sends 
for  Timothy  to  come  to  him  at  once.  Timothy  doubtless 
obeyed  this  summons,  and  it  may  have  been  at  or  after 
Paul's  martyrdom  in  the  Eternal  City  that  Timothy  himself 
was  thrown  into  the  prison  from  which  he  was  released  at 
about  the  time  of  the  writing  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews.27 

As  a  child  serveth  a  father  so  did  Timothy  serve  Paul 
in  the  furtherance  of  the  gospel.28  The  childless  apostle 
had  found  in  him  a  son  after  his  own  heart,  and  he  made 
full  proof  of  his  fidelity  through  twenty  years  of  constant 
fellowship  and  service.  Paul  calls  him  his  true  child  in 
faith,29  his  beloved  child,30  his  beloved  and  faithful  child 
in  the  Lord,31  his  brother  and  God's  minister,32  his  fellow 
worker,33  working  the  work  of  the  Lord  even  as  he  him- 
self did.34  Paul  joins  Timothy's  name  with  his  own  in 
the  superscription  of  First  and  Second  Thessalonians,  both 
of  the  epistles  in  the  first  group,  of  Second  Corinthians  in 
the  second  group  of  epistles,  of  Philemon,  Colossians,  and 
Philippians  in  the  third  group;  and  Timothy  is  directly 
addressed  in  two  of  the  three  epistles  in  the  fourth  or 
Pastoral  group.  No  other  name  is  so  honored.  Paul  and 
Timothy  are  associated  forever  as  sun  and  satellite,  though 


25  Acts  20.  4,  5.  80  2  Tim.  1.2. 

26  Phil.  2.  19.  31  1  Cor.  4.  17. 

27  Heb.  13.  23.  32  1  Thess.  3.  2. 

28  Phil.  2.  22.  »  Rom.  16.  21. 

29  1  Tim.  1.  2.  M  1  Cor.  16.  10. 


468  PAUL  AXD  ITTS  EPISTLES 

Paul  prefers  to  represent  the  relationship  as  that  of  son  and 
father. 

3.  His  Character.  Possibly  Timothy  was  an  only  son. 
He  probably  was  reared  by  two  women  who  shielded  him 
and  cherished  him  as  their  greatest  hope  and  joy.  He  was 
something  of  a  mother's  boy,  petted  but  not  spoiled.  He 
seems  to  have  had  a  delicate  constitution  and  probably  was 
brought  up  by  hand.  His  stomach  was  weak  and  he  fre- 
quently was  sick.35  He  naturally  was  timid  and  shrinking 
in  disposition.  He  was  apt  to  be  fearful,34  and  he  needed 
to  be  encouraged  with  the  thought  of  the  presence  and  the 
gift  of  God.30  He  disliked  to  be  despised  and  felt  keenly 
the  obloquy  which  attended  the  ministry  of  the  word  of 
the  crucified  Nazarene.37  He  clung  to  the  apostle  Paul 
as  a  tower  of  strength,  and  shed  bitter  tears  of  affection 
and  grief  and  foreboding  and  fear  when  he  had  to  part 
from  him.  He  had  little  self-confidence,  and  he  was  afraid 
of  being  overborne  by  impudent,  brazenfaced  opponents 
whom  Paul  could  manage  without  any  difficulty,  but  before 
whom  he  was  disposed  to  shrink  in  self-distrust.  He  was 
so  timid  as  to  seem  irresolute  and  an  easy  prey  to  any 
domineering,  arrogant  opposing  personality.  He  was 
appalled  by  the  hardness  and  the  coldness  of  the  prevalent 
heathenism  and  discouraged  by  the  worldliness  and  the 
hopelessness  of  the  great  masses  of  the  population. 

Paul  was  an  inspiration  to  him  and  kept  his  courage  up, 
but  he  was  afraid  of  himself  when  he  was  left  alone.  Yet 
it  is  to  Timothy's  great  credit  that  he  was  faithful  to  every 
commission  and  loyal  to  every  command.  Though  he  might 
go  with  fear  and  trembling,  he  went.  It  is  the  highest 
proof  of  courage  to  obey  when  the  heart  fails  and  the  body 
rebels  and  the  mind  shrinks  from  its  task,  and  love  and 
loyalty  compel  these  unwilling  servants  to  do  the  master's 
will.     Timothy   was  by  nature  a  coward,   but  by  grace  a 

34  1  Cor.  16.  10.  s82  Tim.  1.  7. 

35  I  Tim.  5.  23.  37  I  Cor.  16.  II;  2  Tim.  I.  8. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  469 

hero  of  the  faith.  Paul  could  depend  upon  his  faithfulness 
and  unselfishness  at  all  times.  He  said:  "Timothy  is  the 
slave  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  have  no  man  like-minded.  He 
seeks  not  his  own  but  the  things  of  Jesus  Christ."38  Paul 
was  disposed  to  think  that  he  was  too  humble  sometimes, 
and  that  he  overestimated  the  disability  of  his  youth  while 
underestimating  the  real  worth  of  his  character  and  his 
experience  in  the  missionary  field.  His  love  never  failed. 
That  was  the  reason  Paul  loved  him.  He  might  have  his 
disabilities,  but  he  had  faith,  hope,  and  love,  and  the  great- 
est of  these  was  his  love.  He  had  found  the  more  excellent 
way,  and  he  walked  in  it  through  all  his  life. 

4.  Tradition  as  to  His  Later  History.  Eusebius  tells 
us  that  Timothy  was  the  first  bishop  of  Ephesus.39  He 
is  said  to  have  remained  here  until  he  was  martyred  for 
interfering  with  a  heathen  feast.  Constantius  removed  his 
bones  to  Constantinople.  He  has  been  sainted  in  the  Greek, 
Armenian,  Coptic,  Maronite,  and  Latin  churches ;  and  in 
the  latter  his  death  is  commemorated  on  January  24. 

VI.  The  First  Epistle  to  Timothy 

1.  Its  Occasion.  Paul  and  Timothy  had  been  together 
recently,  but  when  Paul  went  into  Macedonia  he  had  ex- 
horted Timothy  to  tarry  in  Ephesus  to  counteract  some 
strange  teaching  there  and  to  maintain  church  order  and 
discipline.40  Some  time  had  passed  by  and  Paul  now  writes 
to  Timothy  to  encourage  him  in  his  work  and  to  remind 
him  of  some  of  the  things  he  had  said  to  him  before  their 
parting.  He  gives  Timothy  many  homely  hints  as  to  his 
personal  conduct  and  as  to  his  dealing  with  various  classes 
of  people  and  the  general  management  of  the  church  affairs. 

2.  Its  Advice  Concerning  the  False  Teachers.  The 
teachers  of  strange  and  different  doctrine  are  described  in 

38  Phil.  1.  1;  2.  20,  21. 

39  Hist.  Eccl.,  Ill,  4,  6. 
40 1  Tim.  1.  3. 


470  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

such  general  terms  that  we  cannot  identify  them  at  this  dis- 
tance. Timothy,  of  course,  knew  all  about  them.  He  had 
first-hand  knowledge,  acquired  at  short  range.  Paul  did 
not  need  to  be  more  explicit  in  writing  him  about  them. 
Some  of  their  general  characteristics  are  apparent  in  the 
epistle,  and  they  are  such  as  have  been  reproduced  again  and 
again  in  the  church.  They  understand  neither  what  they 
say,  nor  whereof  they  confidently  affirm.41  They  talk 
loudly  and  yet  are  utterly  ignorant.  Confident  asseveration 
is  characteristic  of  the  fool.  The  wise  man  recognizes  the 
limits  of  his  own  understanding.  The  ignoramus  is  the 
man  who  arrogates  to  himself  infallibility.  Then  these 
people  talk  about  matters  of  idle  questioning  and  disputes 
of  words.42  They  were  supremely  interested  in  things  of 
no  moment  and  wasted  their  time  and  the  time  of  others 
in  wrangling  over  verbal  differences.  They  were  disputa- 
tious and  vociferous,  matching  the  poverty  of  their  thought 
with  the  fluency  of  their  speech.  To  Paul  all  their  conten- 
tion seemed  only  profane  babbling,43  and  old  wives'  fables.44 
It  was  unprofitable  to  listen  to  them  and  it  was  still  more 
unprofitable  to  dispute  with  them.  They  were  ignorant 
sciolists,  set  in  their  own  opinions ;  and  it  was  hopeless  to 
attempt  to  set  them  right.  They  were  willing  to  make 
money  out  of  the  exploitation  of  their  peculiar  fancies,  and 
under  a  show  of  godliness  they  were  on  the  watch  for  gain 
for  themselves.45  They  were  making  trouble  and  stirring 
up  strife.  They  were  corrupt  in  mind  and  bereft  of  the 
truth.  They  were  prone  to  envy  and  evil  surmisings.  They 
were  given  over  to  wranglings  and  bitter  accusations.48 
They  were  great  nuisances,  and  Paul's  advice  to  Timothy 
is  that  he  refuse  to  be  drawn  into  any  debate  with  them  and 
that  he  avoid  all  their  speculations  while  he  maintains  and 
proclaims  the  sound  doctrine  committed  to  his  trust. 

"  I  Tim.  1.2.  *«i  Tim.  4.  7. 

«  I  Tim.  6.  4.  «  1  Tim.  6.  5. 

<3  1  Tim.  6.  20.  "  1  Tim.  6.  4,  5. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  471 

It  is  good  advice  for  all  ministers,  young  and  old,  to-day. 
vSo  many  sectarians  stand  for  some  small  issue  in  defense  of 
which  they  are  belligerent  in  season  and  out  of  season. 
There  are  so  many  independent  and  fraudulent  champions 
of  strange  ideas  always  on  hand,  seeking  to  corrupt  the 
minds  of  the  devout  and  to  replenish  their  own  pocketbooks 
with  aggressive  and  persuasive  speech.  The  best  thing  to 
do  with  them  is  to  let  them  alone.  The  one  thing  that  they 
cannot  endure  is  to  be  ignored.  They  are  supremely  inter- 
ested for  the  most  part  in  what  Marcion  called  indetermin- 
abllcs  qucrstiones.  There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  bother- 
ing with  them.  We  have  enough  to  do  with  the  presentation 
of  the  truth.  Let  error  look  after  itself.  When  the  light 
is  let  in  upon  them  the  rats  run  for  their  holes.  Where  the 
truth  is  preached  it  commends  itself  to  the  upright  in  heart 
and  the  errorists  who  thrive  upon  opposition  languish  and 
die  under  the  steady  and  persistent  preaching  of  the  truth. 
Nothing  will  hurt  them  more  than  the  ignoring  of  their 
presence  and  effort,  except  the  relentless  prosecution  of  our 
own  work. 

Does  anyone  desire  to  stir  up  dissatisfaction  in  the  com- 
munity by  declaring  that  the  divine  grace  is  to  be  enjoyed 
exclusively  through  the  established  channels  of  an  apostolic 
succession  and  the  sacraments  of  the  one  only  properly 
constituted  church?  Let  him  go  ahead  with  his  preaching. 
We  will  evidence  the  possession  of  divine  grace  outside  his 
imagined  established  succession,  and  we  will  preach  the 
unmediated  priesthood  of  every  individual  believer  in  Christ. 
Does  anyone  care  to  maintain  that  a  partial  application  of 
water  in  the  baptismal  ceremony  is  a  proof  of  the  spirit  of 
partial  obedience  to  the  command  of  the  Lord,  and  only 
a  total  immersion  will  meet  the  demands  of  the  case?  Let 
him  maintain  it,  and  we  will  preach  that  no  ceremony  is 
essential  to  salvation  and  that  our  devotion  to  the  Master 
is  independent  of  the  application  of  material  water  in  any 
degree  in  any  ritual  service  to  our  physique.     Does  anyone 


472  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

insist  that  the  advent  of  the  Lord  is  imminent  and  is  he 
imperative  in  his  demands  that  we  hear  and  accept  his  inter- 
pretations of  prophecy?  Let  him  talk,  and  we  will  preach 
that  the  faithful  performance  of  our  daily  duty  is  the  best 
and  the  only  preparation  we  need  make  for  the  appearance 
of  our  Lord.  Do  the  Secularists  and  the  Spiritualists  and 
the  Theosophists  and  the  Christian  Socialists  and  the  Chris- 
tian Scientists  swarm  on  every  hand,  and  are  multitudes 
led  away  by  their  enthusiasms  and  vagaries?  We  have  two 
things  to  do :  first,  we  take  heed  to  ourselves,  that  we  may 
be  an  ensample  to  them  who  believe,  in  word,  in  manner 
of  life,  in  love,  in  faith,  in  purity;  and  then,  second,  we  give 
heed  to  our  teaching,  that  there  be  nothing  in  it  contrary 
to  the  sound  doctrine,  but  that  it  be  according  to  the  gospel 
of  the  glory  of  the  blessed  God,  which  was  committed  to 
our  trust.  We  will  be  diligent  in  these  things ;  we  will  give 
ourselves  wholly  to  them,  for  in  doing  these  things  we  shall 
save  both  ourselves  and  them  that  hear  us.47 

3.  Some  Characteristics.  ( 1 )  This  is  a  rambling  letter, 
with  no  attempt  at  logical  sequence  of  thought.  It  is  partly 
personal  and  partly  official,  partly  addressed  to  the  dear 
child  who  had  been  Paul's  companion  and  trusted  friend  for 
so  long  a  time  and  partly  to  the  official  head  of  the  church 
where  Paul  had  labored  longest  and  in  which  he  was  most 
interested.  Timothy  is  Paul's  son  and  the  Ephesian  dis- 
trict superintendent.  Paul  writes  now  to  the  boy  and  now 
to  the  budding  bishop.  There  is  no  structural  unity  in  the 
epistle.  Paul  has  many  things  on  his  heart  and  he  sets  them 
down  just  as  they  occur  to  him. 

(2)  Walter  Lock  says,  "The  epistle  is  full  of  the  thought 
of  the  salvation  of  all  mankind,  the  consecration  of  all 
creation."  48  Paul  writes,  'T  exhort  therefore,  first  of  all, 
that  supplications,  prayers,  intercessions,  thanksgivings,  be 
made  for  all  men.    .    .    .    This  is  good  and  acceptable  in  the 

47 1  Tim.  4.  12-16;  1.  11. 

48  Hastings's  Bible  Dictionary,  iv,  p.  769. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  473 

sight  of  God  our  Saviour;  who  would  have  all  men  to  be 
saved,  and  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.49  .  .  .  We 
have  our  hopes  set  on  the  living  God,  who  is  the  Saviour  of 
all  men,  specially  of  them  that  believe."  50 

(3)  This  is  "the  first  handbook  of  Christian  and  church 
discipline."  It  sets  the  highest  standard  of  morality  and 
purity  for  all  church  officials.  It  shows  clearly  that  church 
order  and  discipline  are  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  individ- 
ual freedom  and  spirituality. 

VII.  Titus 

Titus  never  is  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Acts.  All  that 
we  know  of  him  we  learn  from  the  references  to  him  in 
the  other  Pauline  epistles  and  in  the  epistle  directly  ad- 
dressed to  him.  He  was  a  Greek,51  and  apparently  a 
heathen  Greek,  who  was  converted  to  Christianity  under 
the  preaching  of  Paul.  Paul  calls  him  his  "true  child."  52 
He  seems  to  have  had  the  least  connection  with  Judaism  of 
any  of  the  missionary  evangelists  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament.  Timothy  was  half-Jewish  by  birth.  Luke  prob- 
ably was  a  Gentile,  but  he  may  have  been  a  proselyte  to 
Judaism  before  he  became  a  Christian.  To  all  appearances 
Titus  came  right  out  of  the  heart  of  heathenism  into  the 
Church  of  Christ.  His  principal  missions  were  to  the  pre- 
dominantly Gentile  church  at  Corinth  and  to  the  church  at 
Crete,  where  it  was  his  business  to  stop  the  mouths  specially 
of  the  vain  talkers  among  those  of  the  circumcision. 

He  was  living  at  Antioch  some  fourteen  years  after  Paul's 
conversion,  and  Paul  and  Barnabas  took  him  with  them  to 
Jerusalem,  where  over  his  person  the  question  was  fought 
out  as  to  whether  an  uncircumcised  heathen  would  be  recog- 
nized as  a  brother  in  good  standing  in  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Titus  was  a  Christian,  and  a  good  one,  but  he  was  not  cir- 
cumcised, and  he  never  had  had  any  connection  with  the 

49 1  Tim.  2.  1-4.  «  Gal.  2.  3. 

60 1  Tim.  4.  10.  «  Titus  1.4. 


474  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Jewish  Church.  The  question  was  whether  he  ought  to 
be  recognized  as  a  Christian  when  he  could  not  be  recognized 
as  a  Jew.  Could  any  man  come  into  the  church  and  main- 
tain good  standing  there  if  he  did  not  enter  by  the  gate  of 
Judaism?  Paul  thought  he  could,  and  Titus  thought  he 
could;  and  the  question  was  discussed,  and  the  men  of 
repute  decided  that  Titus  need  not  be  compelled  to  be  cir- 
cumcised. The  decision  was  made  for  all  time.53  The 
gospel  was  for  the  uncircumcised  as  well  as  for  the  circum- 
cised, for  the  heathen  as  well  as  for  the  proselytes,  for 
out-and-out  Gentiles  as  well  as  for  thoroughgoing  Jews. 
Titus  was  the  man  whose  case  settled  that  question  for  all 
the  ages  to  come.  Thereafter  he  was  one  of  the  tried  and 
trusted  companions  and  servants  of  the  apostle  Paul. 

He  seems  to  have  been  well  known  in  Galatia,  and  he 
may  have  accompanied  Paul  on  parts  at  least  of  the  second 
missionary  journey.  Pie  was  with  Paul  at  Ephesus  and  he 
probably  carried  Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
from  Ephesus  to  Corinth.  He  seems  to  have  succeeded 
where  Timothy  had  failed.  Apollos  had  declined  absolutely 
to  undertake  the  commission.  Titus  went  at  once  and  met 
all  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  with  the  skill  of  a  master, 
and  Paul  was  rejoiced  to  hear  his  report  later  in  Macedonia 
that  the  tangled  affairs  at  Corinth  had  been  straightened  out 
and  all  now  was  ready  for  his  own  coming  there.  He  car- 
ried the  second  letter  to  the  Corinthians  and  finished  the 
good  work  he  had  so  well  begun,  so  that  when  Paul  came 
later  he  was  enabled  to  enjoy  his  stay  in  Corinth  in  compar- 
ative peace.  Some  years  pass  by  in  which  we  hear  nothing 
of  Titus,  and  then  from  this  Epistle  to  Titus  we  learn  that 
Taul  and  he  had  been  laboring  together  in  Crete,  and  that 
when  Paul  was  called  away  he  had  left  Titus  in  Crete  to 
appoint  elders  in  the  churches  and  establish  the  Christians 
there  in  doctrine  and  discipline.54     Later  Titus  was  sent 

"Gal.  2.  1-5. 
"Titus  1.  5. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  475 

on  a  mission  to  Dalmatia.55  Tradition  says  that  Titus 
returned  later  to  Crete  and  that  he  was  bishop  of  the  church 
there,  living  a  celibate  life  to  an  extreme  old  age.  He  died 
at  ninety-four  and  his  body  was  buried  at  Gortyna,  but 
many  centuries  later  his  head  was  carried  away  by  the 
Venetians  and  it  is  preserved  now  among  the  relics  at  Saint 
Mark's  Cathedral  in  Venice. 

Titus  evidently  was  a  choice  spirit,  a  stronger  character 
than  Timothy  and  of  tougher  fiber  than  Apollos.  He  was 
tactful,  firm,  trustworthy,  an  able  administrator,  and  a 
faithful  friend.  He  could  take  care  of  himself  anywhere. 
He  could  accomplish  the  impossible.  He  was  vigorous  and 
efficient.  He  was  a  brother  to  Paul,  a  kindred  soul,  cap- 
able, courageous,  successful  wherever  he  was  sent.  Paul 
relied  upon  him  in  extreme  cases,  and  his  energy  and  ability 
proved  him  worthy  of  all  the  confidence  Paul  placed  in  him. 

VIII.  Crete  and  the  Cretans 

Crete  is  the  largest  island  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean. 
It  is  one  hundred  and  forty  miles  long  and  fifty  miles  wide. 
In  its  most  flourishing  period  it  had  a  dense  population. 
Ptolemy,  Strabo,  Virgil,  and  Horace  speak  of  its  hundred 
cities,  and  the  ruins  of  many  of  them  still  can  be  seen  on 
the  island.  Here  King  Minos  formulated  his  laws,  and 
later  tradition  said  that  Titus  was  his  lineal  descendant. 
Crete  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  republics  of  ancient 
times.  The  Romans  conquered  it  in  B.  C.  69,  and  it  was 
made  a  part  of  a  Roman  province.  It  was  taken  by  the 
Saracens  in  the  ninth  century.  A  century  later  it  was 
recaptured  by  the  Christians.  In  1645  it  was  attacked  by 
the  Turks  with  a  fleet  of  four  hundred  ships  and  an  army 
of  sixty  thousand  men,  and  after  a  thirty  years'  war  they 
captured  it,  and  since  1675  it  has  belonged  to  the  Ottoman 
empire.  The  Cretans  had  a  general  bad  reputation  among 
the  ancient  peoples.     They  were  jealous  and  quarrelsome 

65  2  Tim.  4.  10. 


476  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

among-  themselves,  but  they  usually  were  ready  to  unite 
against  any  common  outside  foe.  Our  term  "syncretize" 
comes  from  the  Greek  word56  which  was  derived  from  this 
circumstance. 

According  to  the  ancients  "the  three  worst  K's"  were 
the  Kretans,  the  Kappadocians,  and  the  Kilicians.  Paul 
quotes  a  current  proverb  concerning  them:  "One  of  them- 
selves, a  prophet  of  their  own,  said,  Cretans  are  always 
liars,  evil  beasts,  idle  gluttons."  Then  he  adds,  "This  testi- 
mony is  true."  The  quotation  is  from  the  Ilepc  Xqtjohojv  of 
Epimenides,  a  poet  with  the  reputation  of  a  seer  who  was 
a  contemporary  of  Solon  and  lived  in  Crete  about  B.  C.  600. 
The  syllogistic  puzzle  of  the  ancient  schools,  called  "the 
liar,"  was  founded  on  this  line.  It  ran  endlessly  thus: 
Epimenides  said  that  the  Cretans  were  liars ;  but  Epimenides 
was  a  Cretan;  and  therefore  Epimenides  was  a  liar;  there- 
fore when  he  said  that  the  Cretans  were  liars  he  did  not 
tell  the  truth,  and  the  Cretans  are  not  liars ;  but  Epimenides 
was  a  Cretan,  and  then  he  told  the  truth  when  he  said  the 
Cretans  were  liars — and  so  on.  Among  the  ancients  "Cre- 
tizing"  was  a  synonym  for  "lying;"  and  the  Cretans  were 
said  to  be  greedy  and  gluttonous  and  drunken  and  sensual. 
Paul  exhorts  Titus  to  reprove  them  sharply  for  these  things ; 
and  he  seems  to  think  they  are  far  from  hopeless,  for  he 
expects  Titus  to  found  churches  among  them  of  those  who 
shall  be  the  heirs  of  eternal  life. 

They  were  a  mixed  population  of  Greeks  and  Asiatics, 
indolent,  superstitious,  untrustworthy ;  yet  Paul  thought 
them  worthy  of  evangelization  and  then  of  careful  training 
in  the  way  of  truth  and  life.  We  are  told  that  at  Pentecost 
certain  of  those  from  Crete  were  present.57  They  may 
have  carried  the  news  of  that  experience  home  with  them 
and  thus  have  been  the  founders  of  Christianity  in  the 
island.     Paul  had  seen  Crete  on  his  voyage  to  Rome  and 

M  avynp7]Ticsai. 
67  Acts  2.  II. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  477 

he  had  advised  that  the  vessel  winter  there.58  The  storm 
had  driven  them  away  at  that  time,  but  Paul  may  have  had 
opportunity  enough  to  study  the  situation  and  to  realize  the 
need  of  oversight  and  organization  of  the  Christians  there. 
Thirty  years  had  passed  since  Pentecost  and  there  were 
congregations  of  professing  Christians  in  every  city  in  the 
island.  Paul  and  Titus  now  had  visited  them  together,  and 
Titus  had  been  left  to  set  things  in  order.  Zenas  and 
Apollos  were  about  to  visit  Crete,  and  Paul  seizes  the  oppor- 
tunity to  write  a  short  letter  to  Titus.  He  tells  Titus  that 
he  will  send  Artemas  or  Tychicus  later  and  when  either 
comes  Titus  must  hasten  to  Nicopolis  to  meet  Paul  there. 

IX.  The  Epistle  to  Titus 

Luther  said  of  it,  "This  is  a  short  epistle,  but  yet  such 
a  quintessence  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  composed  in  such 
a  masterly  manner,  that  it  contains  all  that  is  needful  for 
Christian  knowledge  and  life."  There  is  little  of  doctrinal 
importance  in  the  epistle,  but  it  has  two  rather  remarkable 
passages : 

1.  The  Epiphany  of  Grace.  "For  the  grace  of  God  hath 
appeared,  bringing  salvation  to  all  men,  instructing  us,  to 
the  intent  that,  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly  lusts,  we 
should  live  soberly  and  righteously  and  godly  in  this  pres- 
ent world ;  looking  for  the  blessed  hope  and  appearing  of 
the  glory  of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ; 
who  gave  himself  for  us,  that  he  might  redeem  us  from 
all  iniquity,  and  purify  unto  himself  a  people  for  his  own 
possession,  zealous  of  good  works."  59  Van  Oosterzee  says 
of  this  passage  that  "it  is  one  of  the  loca  classica  for  bib- 
lical theology,  and  one  of  the  comparatively  few  places  in 
the  Pastoral  Epistles  which  furnish  important  contributions 
to  our  knowledge  of  the  doctrinal  system  of  Paul.  We  here 
find  most  perfectly  fused  together,  and  penetrating  each, 

68  Acts  27.  7-12. 

69  Titus  2.  11-14. 


4/8  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

faith  and  life,  doctrine  and  duty,  theory  and  practice."  It 
has  been  suggested  that  this  passage  might  serve  as  a  table 
of  contents  for  the  entire  New  Testament.  "The  Epiphany 
of  Grace"  might  be  an  appropriate  title  for  the  Gospels 
and  the  book  of  Acts.  The  instructions  in  holy  living  well 
represent  the  contents  of  the  epistles.  The  waiting  for  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  describes  the  attitude  and  the  spirit  of 
the  Apocalypse.  The  closing  clauses  summarize  the  whole 
intent  of  the  New  Testament  revelation — redemption  from 
iniquity  and  purification  and  piety.  Our  past  redemption, 
our  present  duty,  and  our  future  hope  are  all  in  this  one 
sentence.  It  is  one  of  the  most  comprehensive  statements 
of  Christian  truth  ever  made  by  man.  It  alone  would  make 
this  epistle  memorable  for  all  time. 

2.  The  other  passage  is  concerning  the  Philanthropy  of 
God.  "When  the  kindness  of  God  our  Saviour,  and  his  love 
toward  man,  appeared,  not  by  works  done  in  righteousness, 
which  we  did  ourselves,  but  according  to  his  mercy  he  saved 
us,  through  the  washing  of  regeneration  and  renewing  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  which  he  poured  upon  us  richly,  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour;  that,  being  justified  by  his  grace, 
we  might  be  made  heirs  according  to  the  hope  of  eternal 
life."  co  Farrar  says  of  these  two  passages:  "Which  of 
all  the  Fathers  of  the  first  or  second  century  was  in  the 
smallest  degree  capable  of  writing  so  masterly  a  formula  of 
Christian  doctrine  and  practice  as  is  found  in  2.  1 1-14,  or  the 
perfectly  independent  yet  no  less  memorable  presentation 
of  gospel  truth  with  a  completeness  only  too  many-sided  for 
sects  and  parties — in  3.  5-7?  Will  anyone  produce  from 
Clemens,  or  Hennas,  or  Justin  Martyr,  or  Ignatius,  or  Poly- 
carp,  or  Irenaeus — will  anyone  even  produce  from  Tertul- 
lian,  or  Chrysostom,  or  Basil,  or  Gregory  of  Nyssa — any 
single  passage  comparable  for  terseness,  insight,  or  mastery 
to  either  of  these?    Only  the  inspired  wisdom  of  the  groat 

60  Titus  3.  4-8. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  479 

est  of  the  apostles  could  have  traced  so  divine  a  summary 
with  so  unfaltering  a  hand.  If  the  single  chorus  of 
Sophocles  was  sufficient  to  acquit  him  of  senility,  if  the 
thin  unerring  line  attested  the  presence  of  Apelles,  if  the 
flawless  circle  of  Giotto,  drawn  with  one  single  sweep  of 
the  hand,  was  sufficient  to  authenticate  his  workmanship 
and  approve  his  power,  surely  such  passages  as  these  ought 
to  be  more  than  adequate  to  defend  the  Pastoral  Epistles 
from  the  charge  of  vapidity."  61 

3.  In  the  closing  directions  to  Titus,  the  name  of  Zenas 
the  lawyer  appears ;  and  it  is  worth  noticing  that  in  these 
Pastoral  Epistles  the  three  learned  professions  thus  are 
represented  as  united  in  the  work  of  Christian  evangelism, 
Paul  and  Apollos  the  theologians,  and  Luke  the  physician, 
and  Zenas  the  lawyer  laboring  together  in  this  field.02 

4.  Lewin  calls  our  attention  to  the  rather  remarkable  fact 
that  the  four  intimate  friends  of  Paul  mentioned  in  Titus 
3.  12,  13  all  derive  their  names  from  Hellenic  deities — Zeus, 
Artemis,  Tyche,  and  Apollo.63 

X.  Pauline  Autobiography  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles 

If  we  conclude  that  the  Pastoral  Epistles  are  genuine,  we 
may  regard  them  as  valuable  historical  sources  and  we  may 
learn  from  them  many  items  of  interest  concerning  the  clos- 
ing events  in  the  life  of  Paul.  Let  us  glance  at  these  in 
order.  Paul  was  released  from  the  first  Roman  imprison- 
ment, according  to  his  expectation  when  he  wrote  Philemon 
and  Philippians.  He  may  have  gone  straight  to  Spain,  but 
we  read  here  that  he  visited  Asia  Minor  and  Crete  and 
Macedonia.  He  sent  the  First  Epistle  to  Timothy  to 
Ephesus  and  the  Epistle  to  Titus  to  Crete.  He  spent  the 
winter  at  Nicopolis  in  Thrace.  He  was  again  in  Macedonia 
and  was  arrested  again  at  Troas  in  Mysia.     He  was  taken 

61  Farrar,  Life  of  Paul,  pp.  662,  663,  note. 

62  Titus  3.  13. 

63  Lewin,  Life  of  Paul,  II,  p.  344. 


480  PAUL  AND  TFTS  EPISTLES 

to  Ephesus  where  Onesiphorus  was  kind  to  him.04  He 
bade  farewell  to  Timothy  and  left  him  weeping  bitterly.'''5 
At  Miletus  Trophimus  was  sick  and  was  left  behind. 
Erastus  remained  in  Corinth  when  they  passed  through  that 
city.66 

Luke,  the  faithful  physician  and  friend,  went  on  with 
Paul  to  Rome.  There  Paul  was  put  into  a  dungeon,  where 
it  was  difficult  to  find  him ;  but  Onesiphorus  sought  him  out 
and  was  again  kind  to  him.67  Here  in  this  imprisonment, 
so  different  from  the  first,  many  deserted  him.  Phygelits 
and  Hermogenes  were  among  the  first  to  turn  away.68  At 
last  Demas  forsook  him,  having  loved  the  present  world."0 
Crescens  was  sent  to  Gaul  and  Titus  to  Dalmatia  and 
Tychicus  to  Ephesus.  Only  Luke  was  with  him.70  Paul 
stood  before  Nero  alone.  He  was  saved  from  the  lion's 
mouth  at  the  first  hearing.71  He  was  remanded  to  prison 
for  a  short  interval  before  his  martyrdom,  and  in  this  crisis 
of  his  affairs  he  writes  the  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy.  It 
is  an  urgent  epistle.  Paul  would  see  Timothy  once  more 
before  he  dies.  He  urges  him  to  come  at  once:  "I  am  long- 
ing to  see  thee."  72  "Haste  to  come  quickly."  73  "Haste 
to  come  before  winter."  74  "The  time  of  my  departure 
is  come."  75 

XL  The  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy 

It  is  the  last  letter  of  the  apostle  Paul.  Salmon  says  of 
it,  "The  impression  left  upon  my  mind  is  that  there  is  no 
epistle  which  we  can  with  more  confidence  assert  to  be 
Paul's  than  the  Second  to  Timothy."  70     Then  there  must 

64  2  Tim.  I.  18.  "2  Tim.  4.  17. 

66  2  Tim.  1.  4.  "2  Tim.  1.  4. 

66  2  Tim.  4.  20.  «  2  Tim.  4.  9. 

67  2  Tim.  I.  16,  17.  «  2  Tim.  4.  21. 
M2  Tim.  1.  15.  «  2  Tim.  4.  6. 

69  2  Tim.  4.  10.  78  Salmon,  Introduction,  p.  41. 

70  2  Tim.  4.  10-12. 


THE  PASTORAL  EPISTLES  481 

be  an  especial  interest  in  reading  the  final  words  of  so 
great  a  hero  of  the  faith.  Paul  was  the  greatest  of  the 
apostles,  one  of  the  master  spirits  of  all  the  ages.  Anything 
he  wrote  is  of  interest  to  us,  but  his  last  words  are  doubly 
so.  Bengel  calls  this  epistle  ''the  last  will  and  testament 
of  Paul  and  his  swan  song."  Calvin  said  of  it:  "This  epistle 
seems  to  have  been  written  not  so  much  with  ink  as  with 
Paul's  own  blood.  It  is  the  solemn  subscription  of  the 
Pauline  doctrine  and  faith."  What  is  the  last  testimony 
of  the  veteran  of  the  cross?  Many  would  say  that  his  life 
work  had  been  a  failure.  He  was  in  prison  and  forsaken 
by  all  of  his  friends.  Deserted,  as  the  Master  was  in  Geth- 
semane,  does  his  faith  fail  him?  What  does  he  say?  "God 
gave  us  not  a  spirit  of  tearfulness.77  I  suffer,  yet  I  am 
not  ashamed;  for  I  know  him  whom  I  have  believed,  and 
I  am  persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  guard  that  which  I  have 
committed  unto  him  against  that  day.78  I  suffer  hardship 
unto  bonds,  as  a  malefactor;  but  the  word  of  God  is  not 
bound.79  The  firm  foundation  of  God  standeth,  having  this 
seal,  The  Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  his.80  I  have  fought 
the  good  fight,  I  have  finished  the  course,  I  have  kept  the 
faith :  henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  the  crown  of 
righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall 
give  to  me  at  that  day.81  The  Lord  will  deliver  me  from 
every  evil  work,  and  will  save  me  unto  his  heavenly  king- 
dom :  to  whom  be  the  glory  forever  and  ever.    Amen."  82 

There  is  no  slightest  suggestion  of  any  failure  in  faith. 
His  confidence  never  has  been  shaken  since  that  day  on  the 
road  to  Damascus.  Alone  and  in  prison  he  is  as  sure  of  the 
living  presence  of  the  Saviour  as  he  ever  has  been.  He  has 
lived  a  life  of  continuous  spiritual  triumphing  and  he  will 
die  a  victor  and  receive  a  crown.  There  is  something  of 
superhuman  fortitude  about  this  man.    Nothing  daunts  him. 

77  2  Tim.  1.7.  8°  2  Tim.  2.  19. 

78  2  Tim.  I.  12.  81  2  Tim.  4.  7,  8. 

79  2  Tim.  2.9.  822  Tim.  4.  18. 


482  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

Nothing  can  separate  him  from  the  love  of  Christ.  He  can 
do  all  things  through  Christ  who  strengthened  him.  He 
is  more  than  conqueror  through  his  loving  Lord.  Tribula- 
tion and  anguish  and  persecution  and  famine  and  nakedness 
and  peril  and  the  sword  have  no  terrors  for  him.  He  fears 
neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor 
things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor  powers,  nor  height, 
nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature.  He  triumphs  through 
faith.  He  is  saved  by  hope.  He  is  secure  in  God's  love.  His 
peace  is  not  to  be  disturbed.  He  has  proven  in  his  personal 
experience  the  truth  of  all  he  has  preached.  God's  grace  has 
sufficed  him.  He  is  coming  to  the  end  of  his  course  in  the 
fullness  of  the  blessing  of  Christ. 

He  has  some  forebodings  of  evil  for  the  church.  He  is 
a  little  anxious  about  Timothy.  He  has  no  foreboding  of 
evil  for  himself.  He  is  not  at  all  anxious  about  his  own 
future.  His  friends  may  forsake  him ;  God  never  will.  He 
may  be  in  a  dungeon,  but  he  is  going  to  a  mansion.  He 
may  be  bound,  but  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound.  He  may 
be  taken  away,  but  the  cause  he  represents  is  here  to  stay. 
His  own  continuous  conquest  is  only  a  prophecy  of  the  final 
and  universal  conquest  of  the  Christ  in  human  hearts. 
What  God  has  done  for  him  he  can  do  and  will  do  for  all. 
To  him  be  the  glory  forever  and  ever.  Amen.  We  could 
ill  spare  this  epistle  with  its  testimony  to  the  consistent  close 
to  the  apostle's  consistent  life.  It  is  just  such  a  closing 
testimony  as  we  would  expect  the  aged  hero  of  the  cross  to 
give. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
A  CLOSING  WORD 


CHAPTER  XIV 
A  CLOSING  WORD 

We  have  finished  the  task  which  we  outlined  in  the  Fore- 
word. We  have  tried  to  get  a  valid  and  vivid  impression 
of  the  apostle  Paul  while  we  were  getting  a  general  view 
of  his  literary  labors.  We  have  studied  each  of  the  thir- 
teen epistles.  We  have  determined  as  exactly  as  seemed 
possible  the  occasion  and  date  and  place  of  their  writing. 
We  have  suggested  something  of  the  outline  and  the  sub- 
stance of  their  content,  but  all  we  have  said  has  been 
intended  simply  by  way  of  introduction  to  their  further 
personal  and  prolonged  study.  We  merely  have  opened 
the  way  to  what  is  worthy  of  life-long  labor.  Dr.  Peabody, 
of  Harvard,  once  said :  "If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over  again, 
I  would  be  willing  to  devote  the  solid  portion  of  my  days 
to  the  study  of  the  Pauline  epistles.  1  should  feel  that  in 
these  alone  there  is  work  enough  and  joy  enough  for  a  life- 
long scholarship."  Have  we  been  interested  in  this  pre- 
liminary study  of  Paul  and  His  Epistles?  Then  let  us 
extend  and  deepen  our  interest  by  continued  devotion  to 
them. 

In  daily  reading  and  meditation  it  may  come  to  be  with 
us  as  it  was  with  Chrysostom,  who  in  the  beginning  of  his 
Homilies  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  said :  "As  I  keep 
hearing  the  epistles  of  the  blessed  Paul  read,  and  that  twice 
every  week,  and  often  three  or  four  times,  I  get  roused  and 
warmed  with  desire  at  recognizing  the  voice  so  dear  to  me, 
and  seem  to  fancy  him  all  but  present  to  my  sight,  and 
behold  him  conversing  with  me.  P>ut  I  grieve  and  am  pained 
that  all  people  do  not  know  this  man,  as  much  as  they  ought 
to  know  him ;  but  some  are  so  far  ignorant  of  him,  as  not 

485 


486  PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 

even  to  know  for  certainty  the  number  of  his  epistles.  And 
this  comes  not  of  incapacity  but  of  their  not  having  the  wish 
to  be  continually  conversing  with  this  blessed  man.  For  it 
is  not  through  any  natural  readiness  or  sharpness  of  wit 
that  even  I  am  acquainted  with  as  much  as  I  do  know,  if 
I  do  know  anything,  but  owing  to  a  continual  cleaving  to 
the  man,  and  an  earnest  affection  toward  him.  For,  what 
belongs  to  men  beloved,  they  who  love  them  know  above 
all  others ;  because  they  are  interested  in  them."  The  better 
we  know  Paul  the  more  we  will  love  this  doughty  little 
champion  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  more  we  read  these 
epistles  the  more  fully  we  will  realize  his  ardor  and  devo- 
tion, his  flaming  heart  and  saintly  life.  The  inspiration  of 
his  life  was  to  be  found  in  his  theology,  and  his  theology  is 
to  be  found  in  his  epistles.  They  reflect  his  life,  and  his  life 
interprets  them.  We  cannot  love  them  without  loving  him 
and  we  cannot  love  him  without  constantly  studying  them. 

In  First  and  Second  Thessalonians  we  studied  Paul  the 
preacher  and  the  apocalyptic  seer  and  we  came  to  under- 
stand something  of  the  methods  of  his  ministry  and  the 
meanings  of  his  prophecy.  In  First  and  Second  Corin- 
thians we  studied  Paul  the  pastor  and  the  apologete,  the 
unparalleled  organizer  of  churches  and  the  undaunted  de- 
fender of  his  Christian  experience  and  faith.  In  the 
Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  to  the  Romans  we  studied  Paul 
the  protestant  against  all  restrictions  of  religious  liberty  in 
thought  and  in  life  and  Paul  the  professor  of  theology, 
systematizing  for  all  time  to  come  the  doctrines  of  redemp- 
tion and  salvation  from  sin.  In  the  Prison  Epistles  we 
found  a  picture  of  Paul  the  personal  friend  of  Onesimus 
and  Philemon  and  the  Philippians  and  the  inspired  idealist 
of  the  identification  of  the  individual  Christian  with  Christ 
and  of  Christ  with  the  universal  church.  In  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  we  rejoiced  to  find  another  glimpse  of  the  con- 
sistent and  confident  and  cheerful  and  courageous  veteran 
of  the  many  victorious  battlefields,  facing  now  toward  his 


A  CLOSING  WORD  487 

eternal  sainthood  in  heaven.  In  our  study  of  these  epistles 
we  have  been  looking  for  their  lesson  to  their  own  time  and 
to  our  time  as  well.  We  have  found  the  sign-manual  of  the 
apostle  who  wrote  them  in  each  of  the  thirteen  products  of 
his  pen.  We  have  found  in  Paul  a  genius,  human  and 
fallible,  but  of  unequaled  good  judgment  in  his  day,  and  we 
are  not  surprised  that  he  has  wielded  an  unparalleled  influ- 
ence in  the  Christian  Church  even  to  our  own  day. 

We  have  not  called  Paul  the  church's  greatest  theologian. 
That  honor  belongs  to  the  apostle  John.  The  Pauline  influ- 
ence has  dominated  the  thought  and  life  of  the  church  at 
large,  and  it  ought  to  do  so  until  the  missionary  and  evangel- 
istic work  of  the  church  is  done.  Then  upon  the  Pauline 
basis  the  Johannine  theology  will  be  the  supreme  influence 
in  the  days  of  the  church's  edification  and  consummation 
in  love.  We  pray  for  the  hastening  of  that  day.  If  we  have 
been  interested  in  the  study  of  Paul  and  His  Epistles,  we 
shall  be  interested  still  more  in  the  study  of  the  personality 
and  the  writings  of  the  apostle  John,  for  after  the  Gospels 
in  our  New  Testament  they  alone  represent  any  higher 
reach  of  human  attainment  in  holy  life  and  holy  inspiration. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

We  give  an  alphabetical  list  of  a  few  good  books  on  each  of  these 
subjects,  and  we  star  some  of  the  best  of  these. 

I.  Lives  of  Paul 

Abbott,  Lyman.    The  Life  and  Letters  of  Paul. 

Bacon,  Benjamin  Wisner.    The  Story  of  Paul. 

Baur,  Ferdinand  Christian.    Paul,  His  Life  and  Work. 

Bird,  Robert.    Paul  of  Tarsus. 

Bousset,  Wilhelm.    Der  Apostel  Paulus. 

Clemen,  Carl.    Paulus :  Sein  Leben  und  Wirken. 
*Conybeare,  W.  J.  and  Howson,  J.  S.    The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St. 
Paul. 

Cone,  Orello.     Paul,  the  Alan,  the  Missionary,  and  the  Teacher. 
*Farrar,  F.  W.    The  Life  and  Work  of  St.  Paul. 

Gilbert,  G.  H.    The  Student's  Life  of  Paul. 

Haussleiter,  Johannes.    Paulus. 

Hausrath,  Adolf.    Der  Apostel  Paulus. 

Iverach,  James.    St.  Paul,  His  Life  and  Times. 

Knopf,  R.    Paulus. 

Lewin,  Thomas.    The  Life  and  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 

Renan,  Ernest.    St.  Paul. 

Robertson,  A.  T.    Epochs  in  the  Life  of  Paul.. 

Sabatier,  Auguste.     The  Apostle  Paul. 

Stalker,  James.    Life  of  St.  Paul. 

Vischer,  Eberhard.    Der  Apostel  Paulus  und  sein  Werk. 

Weinel,  H.    St.  Paul,  the  Man  and  his  Work. 

Wrede,  W.    Paulus. 

II.  Studies  in  Pauline  Subjects 

Baring-Gould,  S.    A  Study  of  St.  Paul. 

Buell,  M.  D.    The  Autographs  of  Saint  Paul. 

Campbell,  James  M.     Paul  the  Mystic. 

Chadwick,  W.  E.    The  Pastoral  Teaching  of  St.  Paul ;  The  Social 

Teaching  of  St.  Paul. 
Cohu,  J.  R.     St.  Paul  and  Modern  Research. 

491 


492  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

♦Deissmann,  Adolf.     St.  Paul,  a  Study  in  Social  and  Religious  His- 
tory ;  Bible  Studies. 

Feine,  Paul.    Paulus  als  Theologe. 

Gardner,  Percy.    The  Religious  Experience  of  St.  Paul. 

Hall,  Edward  H.    Paul  the  Apostle. 
*Howson,  J.  S.    The  Character  of  Paul ;  The  Metaphors  of  Paul. 

Johnston,  Christopher  N.  St.  Paul  and  His  Mission  to  the  Roman 
Empire. 

Jones,  Maurice.    St.  Paul  the  Orator. 

Knowling,  R.  J.     The  Witness  of  the  Epistles. 

Lees,  Harrington  C.    St.  Paul  and  his  Converts. 

Lightfoot,  J.  B.    Biblical  Essays. 

Lock,  Walter.    St.  Paul  the  Master-Builder. 

Matheson,  George.     Spiritual  Development  of  St.  Paul. 

Munzinger,  Carl.     Paulus  in  Korinth. 
♦Myers,  F.  W.  H.    Saint  Paul. 

Pfleiderer,  Otto.    Paulinism. 

Ramsay,  W.  M.  St.  Paul  the  Traveler  and  Roman  Citizen ;  The 
Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  before  170  A.  D. ;  The  Cities  of 
St.  Paul ;  Luke  the  Physician ;  Pauline  and  Other  Studies. 

Redlich,  E.  Basil.     St.  Paul  and  His  Companions. 

Schweitzer,  Albert.     Paul  and  His  Interpreters. 

Speer,  Robert  E.     Studies  of  the  Man  Paul. 

Taylor,  W.  M.    Paul  the  Missionary. 

Thackeray,  H.  St.  J.  The  Relation  of  St.  Paul  to  Contemporary 
Jewish  Thought. 

Weinel,  Heinrich.    Paulus  als  kirchlicher  Organisator. 

Wernle,  Paul.     Paulus  als  Heidenmissionar. 

Whyte,  Alexander.    The  Apostle  Paul. 

III.  Introductions 

1.  To  the  Pauline  Epistles 

*Findlay,  George  G.    The  Epistles  of  Paul  the  Apostle. 

Godet,  F.    The  Epistles  of  Paul;  Studies  on  the  Epistles. 

Scott,  Robert.    The  Pauline  Epistles. 
*Shaw,  R.  D.    The  Pauline  Epistles. 

2.  To  the  New  Testament 

Adeney,  W.  F.     Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 
Allen  and  Grensted.    Introduction  to  the  Books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  493 

Bacon,  B.  W.    An  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 

Bleek,  Friedrich.    Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 
The  Books  of  the  Bible.    New  Testament. 

Book  by  Book. 

Davidson,    Samuel.     An    Introduction   to   the   Study  of  the   New 
Testament. 

Dods,  Marcus.    An  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 

Eichhorn,  Johann  G.     Historisch-kritische  Einleitung  in  das  Neue 
Testament. 

Farrar,  F.  W.    Messages  of  the  Books. 

Fraser,  Donald.    Lectures  on  the  Bible. 

Holtzmann,  Julius  H.    Einleitung  in  das  Neue  Testament. 

Iliff  School  Studies. 

Julicher,  Adolf.    Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 
*McClymont,  J.  A.     The  New  Testament  and  its  Writers. 

Michaelis,  Johann   David.     Introduction  to  the  Divine  Scriptures 
of  the  New  Covenant. 

Milligan,  George.     The  New  Testament  Documents. 

Moffatt,  James.     Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

Peake,  A.  S.    A  Critical  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 

Pullan,  Leighton.    The  Books  of  the  New  Testament. 

Reuss,   Edward.     History  of  the  Sacred   Scriptures  of  the  New 
Testament. 

Salmon,  George.     Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 

Soden,  Hermann  von.    The  History  of  Early  Christian  Literature. 

Strong,  Augustus  H.     Popular  Lectures  on  the  Books  of  the  New 
Testament. 

Weiss,  Bernhard.     A  Manual  of  Introduction  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

Willett  and  Campbell.    The  Teachings  of  the  Books. 

Zahn,  Theodor.     Introduction  to  the  New  Testament. 

IV.  The  Apostolic  Age 

*Bartlet,  Vernon.    The  Apostolic  Age;  its  Life,  Doctrine,  Worship, 

and  Polity. 
*Hausrath,  A.    Times  of  the  Apostles. 
Heinrici,  C.  F.  G.    Das  Urchristentum. 
Lechler,  G.  V.    The  Apostolic  and  Post-Apostolic  Times. 
McGifTert,  A.  C.    A  History  of  Christianity  in  the  Apostolic  Age. 
Neander,  Augustus.     History  of  the  Planting  and  Training  of  the 
Christian  Church. 


494  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Pfleiderer,  Otto.     Primitive  Christianity,  its  Documents  and  Doc- 
trines. 
Pressense,  Edmond  de.    The  Apostolic  Era. 
Purves,  G.  T.    Christianity  in  the  Apostolic  Age. 
Ritschl,  Albrecht.    The  Origin  of  the  Early  Catholic  Church. 
Schaff,  Philip.    Apostolic  Christianity. 

Weizsacker,  Carl.    The  Apostolic  Age  of  the  Christian  Church. 
*Wernle,  Paul.    The  Beginnings  of  Christianity. 

V.  Jesus  and  Paul 

Drummond,  R.  J.    The  Relation  of  the  Apostolic  Teaching  to  the 

Teaching  of  Christ. 
Feine,  Paul.    Jesus  Christus  und  Paulus. 
Goguel,  Maurice.    L'Apotre  Paul  et  Jesus-Christ. 
Jiilicher,  Adolf.    Paulus  und  Jesus. 
Kaftan,  D.  J.    Jesus  und  Paulus. 
Meyer,  Arnold.     Wer  hat  das  Christentum  begriindet,  Jesus  oder 

Paulus  ? 
Walther,  Wilhelm.     Pauli  Christentum,  Jesu  Evangelium. 
Weiss,  Johannes.    Paulus  und  Jesus. 

VI.  The  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians 

Askwith,  E.  H.    An  Introduction  to  the  Thessalonian  Epistles. 
Bornemann,    Wilhelm.      Die    Thessalonicherbriefe    (Meyer    Kom- 

mentar). 
*Denney,  James.     The  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians    (Expositor's 

Bible). 
Findlay,  G.  G.     The  Epistles  of  Paul  the  Apostle  to  the  Thessa- 
lonians (Cambridge  Greek  Testament). 
Frame,  James  E.      A  Critical  and  Exegetical  Commentary  on  the 

Epistles  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians   (International  Critical 

Commentary). 
Jowett,  Benjamin.     St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  Gala- 

tians,  and  Romans. 
Lightfoot,  J.  B.    Notes  on  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
*Milligan,  George.    St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians. 
Moffatt,  James.  The  First  and  Second  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians 

(Expositor's  Greek  Testament). 
Schmiedel,  P.  W.    Die  Brief e  an  die  Thessalonicher     (Hand-Com- 

mentar). 
Wohlenberg,    G.       Der    erste    und    zweite    Thessalonicher    Brief 

(Zahn  Kommentar). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  495 

Zockler,   Otto.     Die   Brief e   an   die   Thessalonicher    (Strack   und 
Zockler  Kommentar). 

VII.  The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 

Bachmann,  Philipp.     Der  erste  Brief  des  Paulus  an  die  Korinther 
(Zahn  Kommentar). 

Beet,  J.  Agar.  A  Commentary  on  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians. 

Dods,  Marcus.     The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians   (Expositor's 
Bible). 

Edwards,  T.  C.     Commentary  on  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corin- 
thians. 

Ellicott,   C.  J.     A  Critical  and   Grammatical  Commentary  on   St. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 

Evans,  Thomas  S.     First  Corinthians   (Speaker's  Commentary). 
*Findlay,  G.  G.     St.  Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians    (Ex- 
positor's Greek  Testament). 
*Godet,  Frederic.     Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians. 

Goudge,  H.  L.    The  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (Westminster 
Commentary). 

Heinrici,    C.    F.   G.     Der   erste    Brief    an    die    Korinther    (Meyer 
Kommentar). 

Massie,  John.    Corinthians.    (New  Century  Bible). 

Robertson,    Archibald,   and    Plummer,    Alfred.     First    Corinthians 
(International  Critical  Commentary). 

Schmiedel,    P.   W.     Die    Brief e   an    die    Korinther    (Hand-Com- 
mentar). 

Stanley,  Arthur  P.    The  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians. 

VIII.  The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 

Bachmann,  Philipp.    Der  zweite  Brief  des  Paulus  an  die  Korinther 

(Zahn  Kommentar). 
Bernard,  J.  H.    The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (Expositor's 

Greek  Testament). 
Denney,  James.  The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (Expositor's 

Bible). 
Farrar,  F.  W.    Second  Corinthians  (Pulpit  Commentary). 
Goudge,  H.  L.    The  Mind  of  Paul. 
Heinrici,  C.  F.  G.     Das  zweite  Sendschreiben  des  Apostel  Paulus 

an  die  Korinther. 
Massie,  John.  Corinthians  (New  Century  Bible). 


496  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Menzies,  Allan.    The  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 
Waite,  Joseph.    Second  Corinthians  (Speaker's  Commentary). 

IX.  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 

Beet,  J.  Agar.    A  Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Gala- 
tians. 

Drummond,  J.    The  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Galatians,  explained 
and  illustrated. 

Ellicott,  Charles  J.     A  Critical  and  Grammatical  Commentary  on 
St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 
*Findlay,  G.  G.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.     (Expositor's  Bible). 

Gibbon,  J.  Morgan.    The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 
*Lightfoot,  J.  B.    St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

Lipsius,  R.  A.    Der  Brief  an  die  Galater.     (Hand-Commentar). 

Moorhouse,  James.    Dangers  of  the  Apostolic  Age. 

Ramsay,  W.  M.     Historical  Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians. 

Rendall,    Frederic.     The   Epistle   to    the   Galatians.      (Expositor's 
Greek  Testament). 

Sieffert,  F.  A.  E.    Der  Brief  an  die  Galater.     (Meyer  Kommentar). 

X.  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans 

Beet,  J.  Agar.    St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

Denney,   James.     Sr.   Paul's   Epistle  to  the   Romans    (Expositor's 
Greek  Testament). 

Gifford,  E.  H.     Romans   (Speaker's  Commentary). 
*Godet,  Frederic.    Commentary  on  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

Gore,  Charles.  A  Practical  Exposition  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

Hort,  F.  J.  A.    The  Romans  and  the  Ephesians.    Prolegomena. 

Liddon,  H.  P.     Explanatory  Analysis  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the 
Romans. 

Lipsius,  R.  A.  Die  Brief e  an  die  Galater,  Romer,  Philipper  (Hand- 
Commentar). 
''Morison,  James.  Critical  Exposition  of  the  Third  Chapter  of 
Romans ;  St.  Paul's  Teaching  on  Sanctification  ;  a  Practical  Ex- 
position of  the  Sixth  Chapter  of  Romans ;  Exposition  of  the 
Ninth  Chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

Moule,  Handley,   C.  G.     The  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans 
(Expositor's  Bible). 
*Sanday,  W.  and  Headlam,  A.  C.      Critical  and  Exegetical  Com- 
mentary on   the  Epistle  to  the  Romans    (International   Critical 
Commentary). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  497 

Stifler,   James   M.     The   Epistle  to   the   Romans ;    a   Commentary 

Logical  and  Historical. 
Weiss,  Bernhard.    Der  Brief  an  die  Romer  (Meyer  Kommentar). 
Williams,  William  G.     Romans :  an  Exposition. 
Zahn,  Theodor.    Der  Brief  an  die  Romer  (Zahn  Kommentar). 

XL  The  Epistle  to  Philemon 

Ewald,  Paul.  Der  Brief  des  Paulus  an  Philemon  (Zahn  Kom- 
mentar). 

Haupt,  Erich.    Die  Gefangenschaftsbriefe  (Meyer  Kommentar). 

Lightfoot,  J.  B.     St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  Philemon. 

Vincent,  M.  R.  The  Epistle  to  Philemon  (International  Critical 
Commentary). 

Soden,  Hermann  von.  Der  Brief  an  Philemon  (Hand-Com- 
mentar). 

XII.  The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 

Abbott,  T.  K.  The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  (International  Critical 
Commentary). 

Beet,  J.  Agar.    The  Epistle  to  Philemon. 

Eadie,  J.    A  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 

Ewald,  Paul.  Der  Brief  des  Paulus  an  die  Kolosser.  (Zahn 
Kommentar). 

Findlay,  G.  G.  The  Epistle  to  the  Colossians.  (Pulpit  Com- 
mentary). 

Haupt,  Erich.     Die  Gefangenschaftsbriefe  (Meyer  Kommentar). 

Klopper,  Albert.    Der  Brief  an  die  Kolosser. 
*Lightfoot,    J.    B.      St.    Paul's    Epistles    to    the    Colossians    and    to 

Philemon. 
♦Maclaren,    Alexander.      The    Epistles    to    the    Colossians    and    to 
Philemon   (Expositor's  Bible). 

Moule,  H.  C.  G.     Colossian  Studies. 

Nicholson,  W.  R.    Oneness  with  Christ. 

Peake,  A.  S.  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  (Expositor's 
Greek  Testament). 

Soden,  H.  von.    Der  Brief  an  die  Colosser  (Hand-Commentar). 

XIII.  The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians 

Abbott,  T.  K.     The  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians 

(International  Critical  Commentary). 
Beet,  J.  Agar.    A  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 


498  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Candlish,  James  S.    The  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Ephesians  (Hand- 
books for  Bible  Classes). 

Dale,  R.  W.     Lectures  on  the  Ephesians. 

Ellicott,  C.  J.     Commentary  on  Ephesians. 

Ewald,    Paul.     Die   Briefe  des   Paulus  an  die   Epheser,   Kolosser, 
und  Philemon  (Zahn  Kommentar). 
*Findlay,  G.  G.     The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians   (Expositor's  Bible). 

Gore,  Charles.    The  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

Haupt,  Erich.    Die  Gefangenschaftsbriefe  (Meyer  Kommentar). 

Klopper,  Albert.    Der  Brief  an  die  Epheser. 

Macpherson,    John.     Commentary    on    St.    Paul's    Epistles    to   the 
Ephesians. 

Moule,  H.  C.  G.    Ephesian  Studies. 
♦Robinson,  J.  A.     St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

Salmond,    S.   D.   F.     The    Epistle   to   the    Ephesians    (Expositor's 
Greek  Testament). 

Soden,  H.  von.     Die  Briefe  an  die  Kolosser,   Epheser,   Philemon 
(Hand-Commentar) . 

Westcott,  B.  F.     Epistle  to  the  Ephesians. 

XIV.  The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians 

Beet,  J.  Agar.     The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians. 

Ellicott,  C.  J.     Commentary  on  Philippians. 

Haupt,  Erich.     Die  Gefangenschaftsbriefe  (Meyer  Kommentar). 

Jordan,  William  George.    The  Philippian  Gospel  or  Pauline  Ideals. 

Kennedy,   H.  A.   A.     The  Epistle  to  the   Philippians    (Expositor's 

Greek  Testament). 
Klopper,  Albert.     Der  Brief  des  Apostels  Paulus  an  die  Philipper. 
*Lightfoot,  J.  B.    St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians. 
Lipsius,  R.  A.     Der  Brief  an  der  Philipper  (Hand-Commentar). 
Moule,  H.  C.  G.    Philippian  Studies. 
Noble,  Frederick  A.     Discourses  on  Philippians. 
Vincent,  M.  R.     The  Epistles  to  the  Philippians  and  to  Philemon 

(International  Critical  Commentary). 
Yorke,  H.  Lefroy.    The  Law  of  the  Spirit. 

XV.  The  Pastoral  Epistles 

Belser,  J.  E.    Die  Pastoralbriefe. 
Ellicott,  C.  J.    The  Pastoral  Epistles. 
Fairbairn,  P.    The  Pastoral  Epistles. 

Holtzmann,  H.  J.     Die  Pastoralbriefe  kritisch  und  exegetisch  be- 
liandt-lt. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  499 

Plummer,  Alfred.     The  Pastoral  Epistles   (Expositor's  Bible). 
Schleiermacher,   F.   G.    E.      Ueber   den   sogenannten   ersten   Brief 

des  Paulus  an  Timotheus. 
Soden,  H.  von.    Die  Pastoralbriefe  (Hand-Commentar). 
Wace,  H.    Timothy  and  Titus  (Speaker's  Commentary). 
White,  Newport,  J.  D.    First  and  Second  Timothy  and  Titus  (Ex- 
positor's Greek  Testament). 
Weiss,    Bernhard.      Die    Briefe    Pauli    an    Timotheus    und    Titus 

(Meyer  Kommentar). 
Wohlenberg,  G.     Die  Pastoralbriefe  (Zahn  Kommentar). 
The  articles   in    Hastings's   Bible   Dictionary,    Cheyne's    Encyclo- 
pedia  Biblica,    Smith's   Bible   Dictionary,    the   Standard    Bible   Dic- 
tionary, and  the  various  general  encyclopedias  should  be  consulted. 


INDEXES 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Agrapha,  164 

Aphrodite  Pandemos,  194 

Apocalypse,  Pauline,  165 

Apollos,  201 

Arabia,  29-33 

Asbury,  Bishop,  425 

Augustine,  10-12 

Barnabas  and  Paul,  273,  277-278 

Celibacy  and   marriage,   218-220 

Church  in  Corinth,  209-212,  267- 
268 

Church  at  Philippi,  412-419 

Church  in  Rome,  301-305 

Church  in  Thessalonica,  142-143, 
145-146 

Church  Parties  in  Corinth,  204- 
206 

Church  Unity,  393-395 

Collection  for  saints,  254-256 

Colossae,  354 

Comparison ;  Colossians  and 
Ephesians,  385-386 

Conscience,  106 

Contrast,  Colossians  and  Ephe- 
sians, 386-387;  First  and 
Second  Corinthians,  229-230 ; 
Prison  Epistles  with  Others, 
403-405 

Corinth,    189-196 

Crete  and  the  Cretans,  475-477 

Demosthenes  and  Paul,  97-99 
Disregard  of  Nature,  74-82 
Disregard  of  Rules,  82-91 

Epistle  to  Laodiceans,  381-384 


Four  Groups  of  Epistles,  70-71 
Friendship,    Paul's    Genius    for, 
441-442 

Galatia,  271 
Galatians,   279-281 
Gallio,   198-200 
Gamaliel,  24 

Hamlet  and  Paul,  435-436 
Heresies  at  Colossae,  356-370 
Hierapolis,    352-354 

Integrity,  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
221-327;  Second  Corinthians, 
264-267 

Isthmian  games,  191,  223-224 

Jesus  and  Paul,  127-135 
John  and  Paul,  373-374,  487 
Joy  of  Paul,  421-426 

Laodicea,  351-352 

Lost  Epistles,  71,  72,  73 

Luther,  Martin,   12,  13 

Meat  offered  to  idols,  203,  220 
Metaphors    of    Paul,    architec- 
tural,   78;    athletic,    79;    mili- 
tary, 78,  79;  mixed,  83-84 

North  Galatian  theory,  275-279 

Onesimus,  333-334,  341-343 
Outline,   First  Corinthians,  217- 

221 ;  Second  Corinthians,  253- 

257;  Ephesians,  396;  Galatians, 

291-292 
Outline,  Romans,  315-321 ;  Phil- 

ippians,   433-446 


503 


5°4 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Paul,  Advocate,  115-118;  anger 
of,  49-52 ;  coarseness,  82-83 ; 
commission,  28-29;  consecra- 
tion, 58-59;  conversion,  26-28; 
courage,  54-58,  153;  Greek 
environment,  23 ;  health  of, 
36-38;  Hellenist,  91-110;  hu- 
mility, 53;  imperialism,  62-64; 
in  Arabia,  29-33  >  m  Syria  and 
Cilicia,  33-34;  Jewish  descent, 
19-22;  love  of,  48,  155,  441- 
442 ;  orator,  235-237 ;  Pharisee, 
21;  physique,  34-36;  pioneer, 
90;  preacher,  151-157;  rabbi, 
110-115;  Roman  citizenship, 
22-23;  saintliness,  59-62,  156; 
schooling,  24-25 ;  self-asser- 
tion, 53-54;  sensibility,  47; 
thorn  in  the  flesh,  38-46; 
tolerance,  434;  trade,  24;  use 
of   Scripture,  25,  312 

Peculiarities   in  greetings,  69-70 

Philippi,  409-410 

Pliny's  Letter,  337-339 

Prison  trilogy,  331-332 


Saint  Francis,  424 

Sayings  of  Jesus,  164,   183 

Second   Advent,    168-182 

Self-sufficiency,    107 

Slander,  230-232 

Slanders   against    Paul,   232-250. 

251-253,    286-289 
Socrates,  424 
Sosthenes,  200 
South   Galatian   theory,   272-275 

Tarsus,  23 

Thessalonica,    139-140,    146 
Thucydides  and  Paul,  95-97 
Timothy,  147,  465-469 
Titus,  473-475 

Uniform  outline,  69 
Unselfishness  of  Paul,  154 

Vitality  of  epistles,  10-15 
Vocabulary,  109- no 

Wesley,   John,    13-M,    *79.    231- 

232,  373,  425 
Work,  gospel  of,  182-183 

Yoke- fellow,  443 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES 

Acts  2.  16-20,  176;  13.  9-1 1,  50;  Phil.   2.   5-11,   426-428;   3.   5,   6, 

16.  37,    49;    20.    25,    454-459;  20-21;  3.  8-16,  438-439;  3-  2i, 
23-  3,  50  439-441 

Col.  I.  2,  369;   1.  9-1 1,  358-360;  Rom.  1.  24-32,  195;  11.  17-24,  80; 

1.  28,  361-362,  368;  2.  3,  371;  13.  13-14,  11 

2.  6,  7,  372-375  l  Thess.  1.  3,  157-158;  1.  6,  159; 
14.  35,  221;   16.  9,  57  1.  8,  145-146;  1.  10,  181;  4.  11, 

2  Cor.  10.  1,  233-235;  10.  10,  233,  159-162;   4.    13-18,    176-177;   4- 

235,  238;  11.  23-33,  261;  12.  7-  15-17.    164;    5-    16-22,    162-163; 

10,  38;    12.   16,  245-247,   251  5-  23,  163 

Eph.  1.  3-13,  370;  4.  8,  in  2  Thess.  2.  10,  183-184;  2.  12,  171- 

Gal.  1.  8,  g,  51;  1.  15,  19;  1.  16,  178;  2.  13,  14,  184-185;  3-  7,  8, 

17,  29;  1.  21,  33;  3-  16,  in;  10-12,  182-183;  3-  17,  185 

3.  19,  112;  4.  13,  15,  40;  4-  21-  2  Tim.  3.  8,  112;  4.  14,  15,  52 
31,  iio-iii;  5.  11,  51  Titus  2.   11-14,  477-478;   3-  4-8, 

2  Pet.  3.  15,  16,  118  478-479 


505 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Acts  of  Paul  and  Thecla,  35 

Adeney,   264,   272,   323,   375,   461 

Alexander,  42 

Alford,  281,  402,  461,  463,  464 

Aratus,    103 

Aristotle,  105 

Arnold,   Matthew,   65,    135,  443 

Augustine,   10,   12,  41,  44,   129 

Bacon,  272,  323,  397,  431,  461 

Barnabas,  226 

Bartlet,  272,  431 

Bauer,  429 

Baur,  96,  225,  335,  397,  403,  428, 

443,  461 
Beet,  226,  316,  401,  430 
Bengel,    196,   339,   376,   401,   421, 

481 
Bernard,  131,  461 
Beyschlag,  264,  430,  461 
Boehme,  44 
Buell,  73 

Calvin,  41,  76,  313,  317,  376,  481 

Casaubon,    119 

Chambers,   114,  313 

Charles,   175,  360 

Chrysostom,    41,    192,    313,    401, 

463,  480 
Cicero,   I39 
Clarke,  386 
Cleanthes,    102 
Clemen,  164 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  164,  186, 

264,  376,  397,  4-43,  ¥>4 
Clement   of  Rome,  225,  462,  464 
Cult-ridge,    10X,  40-' 


Cone,  214,  264,  397 
Curtius,  108 

Darwin,  81 

Davidson,  275,  385,  397,  429, 

461 
Davies,    259 

Deissmann,  135,  257,  314 
Dobschiitz,   275,  282,  397 
Dods,  134,  142,  214,  461 
Dwight,    117 

Ellicott,  401,  402,  463 
Erasmus,  119,  261,  339 
Eusebius,  106,  463,  469 
Ewald,  44,  125,  164,  323,  339, 
430,  461,  463 

Farrar,   42,   44,   90,   91,   97, 
172,    192,    275,    297,    314. 
323,  337,  358,  3/0,  386,  403, 
430,  437,  461,  463,  478 

Findlay,  71,  222,  258,  275, 
386,  398,  401,  430,  452,  461, 
464 

Fraser,  222 

Fox,  44 

Gibson,    100 

Gilbert,  275,  461 

Gerson,  41 

Godet,  14,  116,  164,  186,  206, 
253,  259,  261,  265,  275,  281, 
297,  307,  3M,  326,  358,  397, 
429,  430,  461,  463 

Gore,  104 

Grotius,  402 


431, 


397 


121, 
313, 
429, 

308, 
463, 


226, 
-'U4. 
401, 


506 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


S07 


Harnack,  164,  326,  377,  397,  429, 

461 
Hase,   164 
Hausrath,  44,  62,    169,   185,  264, 

272,  296,  308,  323,  414,  461 
Hermas,  226,  397 
Herzog,  45 
Hicks,    108 
Hilary,  41 
Hilgenfeld,    164,    264,    275,    308, 

429,  432,  461 
Hofmann,  44,  275,  461 
Holsten,  44 
Holtzmann,    164,    185,    264,    275, 

281,  323,  397,  403,  429,  430,  461 
Hort,  397,  401,  430,  461 
Howson,  42,  80,  275,  397,  461 
Huxley,  81 
Huxtable,  88 

Ignatius,  226,  397,  464 
Irenaeus,   164,  186,  376,  397,  428, 
464 

Jerome,  42,   118,  339,  347,  463 

John  of  Antioch,  36 

Jowett,   168,  275 

Jtilicher,  164,   186,  275,  323,  377, 

397,  424,  430,  461 
Justin  Martyr,  106,  185,  376 

Kaftan,   135 

Kelman,  108 

Kennedy,  264,  431 

Koster,  99 

Knowling,  320,  397,  462 

Krenkel,  44 

Kypke,  99 

Law,  372 

Lewin,  42,   103,  104,  463,  479 
Light  foot,  44,  103,  104,  168,  275, 
280,  282,  284,  322,  326,  338,  352, 


377,  382,  383,  387,  401,  429,  430, 

443,  462,  463 
Lindsay,   12 
Lipsius,   164,    186,   264,  275,  281, 

323,  429,  43i 
Lock,  390,  392,  393,  397,  430,  472 
Luther,   12-13,  41,   113,    119,  280, 

297,  308,  313,  318,  340,  364,  401 

Maclaren,  362,  365,  366 

Mansel,  357 

Marcion,  321,  346,  376,  384,  400, 

428 
Maurice,  402 
McClymont,  226,  297 
McGiffert,  264,  272,  323,  397,  430, 

431,   451,   454,  461 
Melanchthon,  308,  313 
Merivale,  115 
Myers,  237,  260,  363 
Mohammed,  44 
Moffatt,  264,  275,  281,  377,  397, 

43i,  461 
Monod,  402 
Morley,  49 
Moule,   403,  430 
Muratorian  Fragment,   164,    186, 

264,  346,  370,  397,  428,  463,  464 

Nicephorus,  36 
Origen,  118,  347,  443 

Pascal,  371 

Peake,  264,  272,  326,  429,  431,  461 

Pfleiderer,  164,  185,  264,  308,  323, 

388,  397,  429,  461 
Philopatris,  36 
Pierson,  402 
Plato,   105,    106 
Plummer,   225,  462 
Plumptre,   43,   345,   462,   463 
Polycarp,    186,   397,  428,  464 
Pressense,    120,    164 


5o8 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


Ramsay,   42,    101,    108,   272,   289, 

297,  326,  430,  462 
Renan,  26,  119,  135,  164,  169,  186, 

199,  272,  323,  339.  397,  403,  429. 

443,  461,  463 
Reuss,    120,    164,    186,    281,    323, 

401,  429,  431,  457 
Robertson,  222,  256,  264,  265,  397 
Royce,  131 

Sabatier,   117,  164,  186,  265,  272, 

290,  323,  335.  339,  401,  429,  461 
Saint  Bernard,  44,  77 
Saint    Catherine,    44 
Saint  Francis,  44,  424 
Salmon,  275,  282,  397,  462,  463, 

480 
Salmond,  391,  401,  403 
Sanday,  265,  272,  314,  326,   377, 

430,  458,  462 
Saphir,  441 

Schaff,  44,  120,  125,  390,  462 
Schmiedel,  44,  164,  229,  264,  275, 

281,   323 
Schiirer,  46,  275,  323,  429 
Seneca,  102,  103,  199 
Shaw,  47,  58,   163,  169,  192,  196, 

265,  272,  297,  335,  385,  397,  40i, 

430,  455,  462,  463 


Socrates,  44,  424 
Stalker,    126 
Stanley,  222,   223 
Swedenborg,  44 

Tertullian,  42,  113,  164,  173,  186, 

264,  376,  384 
Theodoret,  41 
Theophylact,    41 
Tholuck,  119,  313 
Tyerrnan,   14 

Vincent,  261,  377,  430 
Von    Soden,    164,    185,   264,   272, 
323,  339,  377,  390,  397,  461 

Weiss,    186,    2C5,    275,    290,    323, 
377,  388,  397,  401,  429,  430,  455, 

462,  464 

Weizsacker,    185,    221,    260,    265, 

272,  323,  397,  425,  4<Ji 
Westcott,  381,  383 
Whitefield,  76 
Witsius,  402 

Zahn,  164,  186,  253,  265,  272,  323. 
325,  326,  377,  397,  4->9,  430,  462, 

463.  4<M 
Zockler,   275 


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